He brought ten scientific companions to document what they experienced, and what they witnessed was miraculous. They noted abilities unlike any ordinary person — from manifesting food on command much like Christ, to looking ageless, to being in two places at once. These Masters were people of extraordinary energy, always generating, never retreating, and some individuals experienced instantaneous healing of chronic health conditions through a single interaction.

These were just a few examples from Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East, written by Baird Spalding in the early 1900s. Fact or fiction, I’m not sure, but it does give a glimpse into what we are capable of.

Now the purpose of opening with this isn’t to show you how to be in two places at once, but rather how the Masters revealed a simple biological mechanism to explain their spiritual abilities… and it wasn’t something mystical or esoteric.

It’s something in you right now.

“The thyroid controls the whole endocrinal system, bringing it into harmony with all of the other glands and the whole glandular system. It is through this development that the spiritual faculties are brought into conscious use.” —Baird T. Spalding, Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East, Vol. 6

When I read this, I almost hit the floor. He could’ve said that meditation was the key, or wild breath work, or psychedelics… but no. Instead he stated that stimulating the thyroid was the main thing. Something Ray Peat has hinted at for decades now. It made me think about the Law of Attraction, Spirituality and Manifestation, and how I noticed personally that my manifestations happened faster depending on my rate of thyroid metabolism. Like scary fast. With metabolism up, I naturally feel more in tune with the Universe, kind of like a mild psychedelic trip.

Compare that to my hypothyroid days, when my pulse was 32bpm and body temp under 96.6F, I couldn’t manifest a thing without extreme effort. Everything felt hard to do, I felt impotent in life, and there were times that I felt hopeless that I’d never achieve my goals. Life was happening on autopilot, always missing that inner sense of euphoria and that go-get-’em attitude I had as a kid.

And it wasn’t like I wasn’t doing my best to create a better life for myself. I was nose deep in spiritual texts daily, doing cold plunges, breath work, meditating, creating my vision boards, watching manifestation YouTube and even tripping balls… and I was still feeling like those goals were so far away.

But the moment I cranked my metabolism up, I all of a sudden felt that I had energy to create again. Ditching the TV and binging Peaky Blinders, I got up and started to build. I genuinely wanted to work on me and manifest a better life for myself.

I felt the vitality to do all the things I knew I needed to do, and this time — I had the follow through.

I began to see this exact pattern in my coaching clients too. Within weeks of increasing their metabolism and removing the things that were blocking energy flow, they started manifesting what they had been wanting. Not a yacht on a vision board (one day!), but peace with themselves, action toward a business they’d been stalling on, body fat dropping with ease. They shifted trajectory, and what they wanted started coming to them rather than them always chasing it.

Metabolism — or simply getting as healthy as you can — was the answer, not some hidden esoteric spiritual knowledge to manifest your dream life.

So today, I want to fill the gap that spiritual teachers miss and the new age internet doesn't know exists. I can promise you that if you download this model into your head, you will supercharge your manifestations.

Let’s start by bridging science and spirituality, and begin seeing things through the language of metabolism…

What Manifestation Actually Asks of You

The Law of Attraction, Neville Goddard, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Napoleon Hill — they all point to two key ingredients to create something:

The first is feeling. Your feeling is what creates. Feelings are emotions, emotions are energy, and energy is your vibration, your frequency, your resonance. That is ingredient one. The second is a clear intention. You must know what you want to create and the feeling behind it- seeing it, feeling it, and believing it as done. That intention is a thought, and that thought is like a text message being sent out to the Universe.

Hold both together, feeling and thought — you create. You create faster the higher your level of energy.

Practices like affirmations, hypnosis, gratitude journaling, visualization, all revolve around this understanding. It’s pretty universal when it comes to reality creation.

But there is one elephant in the room… every single one of these approaches treats your emotional state as freely available for you to choose. That you can just “be happy” like the flip of a switch. If that were the case, then we’d have a society of people living their dream life! Instead, there has to be another layer deeper as to why people cannot make true change in their lives, and that answer for me was rooted in biology.

Think about it. Have you noticed how much harder it is to feel grateful on four hours of sleep? How being joyful after working eighty hours in a week takes a lot of effort? Now compare that to eight hours of sleep, well fed, a chill work week. Gratitude comes easy then. Joy comes easy then. Your feeling state is not independent of the physical state… they are married (Tomaso et al., 2021; Hinson et al., 2021; Palmer et al., 2024).

So the logic I am coming from is simple: the Temple, your body, must be in order to hold the elevated emotions that manifest beautiful things in your life. And bioenergetics says that there must be an abundance of energy in the cell to hold and sustain those higher states. Only from surplus can energy be transmuted into creation, effectively “spilling over” from a robust metabolism.

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” — 1 Corinthians 6:19

So the main path people take to manifest their lives is essentially doing it while walking through mud. You’ll eventually make your way, but it’s dirty, it’s inefficient, and it’s slow. Most people are experiencing exactly this in our current environment, defaulting to a more primitive form of energy production from the onslaught of health issues we are facing.

But, the alternative approach I want you to embrace is like flying a private jet. It’s fast, it’s clean, it’s absolutely enjoyable. But it is expensive, and to run it — you must raise metabolism. It requires an abundance of energy to work from.

So if you’ve been stuck — it’s not because you are lazy, or not trying hard enough. You are likely one of the hardest working people you know. But you know inside that there is something that is off, and you haven’t been able to pin it down. The issue is that you’ve been applying mental solutions only to an energetic problem, and if you apply that lens — all of a sudden you can find your way to a proper solution.

Now, let’s build the model a bit more, and review some more about energy and emotions.

Energy Charts and The Map of Consciousness

You’ve probably seen these energy scales before. David Hawkins scaled consciousness on an exponential logarithm, emphasizing how powerful elevated emotions are (Hawkins, 1995). Dr. Joe Dispenza speaks in terms of frequency, such as creative mode versus survival mode — and again emphasizing how powerful elevated emotions are (Dispenza, 2017). Abraham Hicks, an “OG” of the Law of Attraction, maps vibration and tells you to move up one level at a time instead of leaping to the top. (Hicks, 2004). She again emphasizes how powerful elevated emotions are.

So we have a psychiatrist, a researcher, and a channeler of spiritual entities- who have arrived at a similar understanding: your energy is everything.

When analyzing the patterns, it’s quite clear that if you want to manifest anything — love, health, wealth — that you want to do so from joy, love, gratitude, belief. Higher the energy, the more creative power you have. Lower energy, more survival. So it seems pretty simple right? To make a better life for yourself, you just be happy! In short, yes that’s all you have to do. But... there is a huge gap missing from these charts. There is a complex level of human chemistry that takes place underneath to HOLD and SUSTAIN these elevated emotions.

Which begs the question.. where does that energy come from? How do you actually get more of it to move up the chart? The scales work, they are maps, but there is no clear steps to make use of them. I am going to fill in the gaps there, from a Bioenergetic view, that can explain what generates the energy you are looking for.

Where Feelings Actually Come From

If you would’ve asked me a few years ago where feelings come from, I would’ve pointed to the mind and thought it was psychology only. And that if you wanted to feel better, you’d need to change your mental model. Of course that is a lot of the explanation, but not the full truth. In order to effectively make radical change in your feelings, using mental solutions alone is handicapping yourself. In actuality, most of your feelings are endocrine based, and shifting your metabolism changes your feeling and thought patterns from the body up. You feel your emotions from your hormones and neurotransmitters — or in my holistic term for today, metabolism.

Ask any woman how she feels different on her period. She’ll tell you everything shifts. She may feel like a walrus when in reality she’s lean, or feel irritated by something that wouldn't register at all around ovulation. Ask any man how he felt before and after improving his testosterone. He’ll tell you it changed his life, that he felt like a man who naturally was self confident, assertive, and disciplined. Ask anyone who has been running high cortisol for months. They’ll express themselves through survival emotions, and you’ll feel the energy they give off from across the room. It’s pure stress energy, and I know you know that feeling. It’s not a place to manifest your dreams from.

So a lot of who “You” are — your personality, goals, beliefs, flaws — has a level of metabolic function that shapes who you are. And if you change the metabolism underneath — you can change many aspects of yourself to align with a specific manifestation, naturally, without forcing it.

Looking through the lens of metabolism, here are some ways you are shaped by these chemicals:

Cortisol and adrenaline are your two primary stress hormones. They are catabolic, meaning they break down your tissues and fuel for emergency energy. Over time, that cost is high, and your reserves are drained leaving you with no currency to spend. At first, they can feel euphoric. This is the catecholamine honeymoon. But chronically, they lead to emotional retreat, such as fear, isolation, depression, anger, envy, hyper vigilance. You feel like you’re reverting toward something more animal — more competitive, more ego-driven, further from the creative state manifestation requires. Think more animal, less man. This is you falling from grace, falling from your divine nature that creates. (Selye, 1956; Peat, n.d.).

Prolactin rises under chronic stress, which also suppresses progesterone while antagonizing dopamine. This combination makes you feel flat, prone to retreating and withdrawing from life. In my coaching work, I’ve found that elevated prolactin also makes men prone to guilt and shame — that sense of wanting to back down rather than step up. (Sobrinho, 2015; Torner, 2016).

Estrogen, in Hans Selye’s stress research, rises during the initial shock phase of a stressor. It increases cortisol availability to your tissues and suppresses thyroid function. In that first hit, estrogen can feel euphoric — it mimics energy, and it becomes addicting. But it is not true energy. It’s back to stress energy. I notice that clients whose estrogen runs high tend to talk a great deal with no coherent line of thought — lots of motion, very little movement, and they have “no chill”. (Selye, 1956; Peat, n.d.).

Your neurotransmitters are involved as well, tightly connected to hormonal function. Low dopamine, improper serotonin synthesis, low GABA — all of these make a person feel unmotivated, sad, hopeless, apathetic. Under stress, tryptophan metabolism gets hijacked. Stress hormones and inflammation pull tryptophan down the kynurenine pathway and away from serotonin, and then the pathway stalls before it completes its run to NAD+, accumulating neurotoxic intermediates like quinolinic acid instead. This is at the forefront of the research, and likely one implication in major depression (Myint & Kim, 2008; Oxenkrug, 2010; Chen et al., 2021). Aldosterone, lactic acid, parathyroid hormone are additional stress mediators that rise under survival states.

All of these skew a person toward negative vibrations, toward low energy, toward survival. So while you keep trying to think positively in an effort to manifest, your metabolism is keeping you locked in the feeling of survival. Can you see how that would make manifestation difficult? Damn near impossible.

Now, on the other hand, under the influence of pro-metabolic substances, feelings begin to elevate, without effort, directly from shifting chemistry.

Thyroid hormone directly increases respiration, ATP production, and oxygen consumption in your cells. It drives the creation of your youth associated hormones, progesterone and DHEA. T3 acts as a potent antidepressant, activating many of the euphoric feeling mechanisms in the brain, stimulating brain energy. It promotes the oxidation of glucose when paired with enough sugar, suppressing excessive free fatty acid release that would otherwise block the whole process. To me, good thyroid function feels like turning the lights on — an energizer bunny radiating vitality through the whole body. Think abundance. Think vitality. Think joy. T3 is a true high vibration hormone, and likely why it stimulates the spiritual faculties in man, as mentioned from the intro. (Joffe et al., 1993; Aronson et al., 1996).

Progesterone opposes estrogen and cortisol while being pro-thyroid and supporting GABA function. Under the influence of ample progesterone, you can truly relax. It feels like a sense of equanimity, calming things down and keeping adaptive energy high. Think peace. Think relief. Think calm (Majewska et al., 1986; Bäckström et al., 2022).

DHEA, another youth-associated steroid hormone, suppresses cortisol directly. It brightens the mood, and in my experience, it removes the “doom and gloom” that hangs over a person under chronic stress. Other substances that support this pro-metabolic state include pregnenolone, DHT (5-AR is critical, men), allopregnanolone, testosterone, dopamine, and CO2 (Young et al., 2002; Gallagher et al., 2008).

Now think about this. If you were walking around, charged up under the influence of pro-metabolic chemistry, don’t you think it’d be easier to manifest things in your life? No need to positive think, to meditate or to visualize. These things happen NATURALLY in your day to day human experience. Neville Goddard says to “Live in the end” and shifting your metabolism allows you to experience that fully now, which attracts more of those similar experiences into your life as that is the reality you experience.

As an example, when I am in a high metabolic state, I naturally want to create things. Business is inspiring and I want to express my knowledge. Relaxation is easy, as I can easily sit at peace with myself outside needing nothing but a glass of sparkling water and a gentle breeze, while feeling the radiant sun on my skin to feel truly at peace and relaxed. Love happens from within, as a love for life expresses through me, transferring into my lady, my family and God, and a deep feeling that there is always more love — which naturally brings more and more love into my life since that is my internal state.

These are the goal. But, the catch is that they require ample amounts of energy to produce. Your body must have cellular function running well enough to synthesize them, creating an abundance of energy. And for most people, it doesn’t. Let’s see how that looks in your cells…

Understanding Basic Energy Metabolism

In order to be in states of good endocrine function and high vibration, your cellular energy production must be operating well — specifically through a process called oxidative phosphorylation, with minimal default into glycolysis, or specifically fermentation. Let’s break these down:

The first is glycolysis. It splits glucose into pyruvate and nets roughly 2 units of ATP, which is fast, anaerobic and cheap. If you are under chronic stress, lack adequate nutrition, or lack CO2, it becomes lactate — that's fermentation, which is a more primitive form of energy metabolism. It’s hard to be in pure bliss while your cells are generating energy this way.

The second pathway is oxidative phosphorylation — a highly evolved form of energy metabolism. From that same molecule of glucose, it takes pyruvate into the mitochondria and runs through the full electron transport chain. Upon completion, roughly 36 units of ATP are produced. From simply running the full cycle, 18x more energy is generated from the same input.

That is 18x more energy. Can you imagine life with that much more energy in your body? You bet it’d be easier to feel joy, patience, or peace.

Now let’s go a little deeper.

The chemistry created from oxidative phosphorylation produces an oxidized cellular state, and one key marker of that is a high NAD+/NADH ratio. In this state, your cell stays abundant. Energy generates energy. Reserves accumulate, more fuel comes in, and it all gets used effectively. Think of this as building order upon order — a coherent cellular state. This is a state you can manifest from, with a significantly more powerful cell. I like to think of this as a larger “aura” around you, or your field charging up.

But if you stay in the reduced state, where the NAD+/NADH ratio is low, NADH backs up much like a traffic accident. The cell converts pyruvate into lactate just to regenerate enough NAD+ to keep glycolysis limping along. And that lactate is expensive. It has to be sent to the liver and rebuilt into glucose through the Cori Cycle, which costs six ATP to recover the two ATP you just made… a net loss of four every time the loop runs (Cori & Cori, 1929).

This means you are going into debt to keep your cells alive.

That is a reduced state. And you cannot manifest from this. There is no energy to create with. The cell is spending more than it earns just to stay operating (albeit barely), and meanwhile you are trying to attract the love of your life while you are in massive cellular debt. That right there is not an energetic match.

Now go back to the energy charts. Notice how every feeling at the top requires more energy. Joy, bliss, freedom, love — these are metabolically expensive states to hold, and they demand an abundance of energy. If your cells are not charged, you will NOT sustain elevated emotions. You will default into fermentation, into the reduced state, which does not require much energy. Less energy available means lower energy states expressed — guilt, shame, depression, apathy.

So beat this into your head: no matter how much you think positively, do your gratitude practice, or read self-help, if your cells are not producing adequate energy, you will not hold higher energy states.

I know this from experience, since I ran an organic acids test (OAT) during a time where I was miserable. What is showed was a low NAD+/NADH ratio, running on excessive glycolysis, accumulating lactate and generating little ATP. The best way I can describe that feeling is that it’s like going through life as an iPhone on low power mode. The reduced frame rate, the slow loading times, on the verge of shutting down any moment. This is where a lot of people live, and while you are technically “alive” are you really living? From my time in this state, I can tell you there is much more that you can be feeling in your life, if only you work on metabolism. More on how in a bit.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

Now, let’s see what an integrated model looks like — tacking metabolism and cellular energy with a manifestation scale.

The Bioenergetic Guidance Scale

Now with a deeper model of understanding metabolism and cellular energy, we can create a new guidance scale to better understand and take control of our energy level in our lives. I made this to better help my clients understand metabolism and manifestation. I used the logic of nervous system regulation, coherence and HRV for the frequency lines, borrowed the states from Dispenza, Hawkins and Hicks’ energy charts, and placed a short description of what is happening metabolically in each state to the right.

At the very top you can see I placed joy, freedom, and love. The chemistry expressed in these states is full oxidative phosphorylation with a high ATP output and a strong electrical charge. The cell is plentiful, generating energy upon energy, and the pro-metabolic hormones — thyroid, progesterone, DHEA, pregnenolone — are operating efficiently over stress energy. A person in this state has reserves, they are radiant, and when they walk into a room, you feel it expressed from their field. That charisma is an expression from your cells, not some psychological trick.

Dispenza illustrates this very well — under stress physiology, a person’s light/energy field shrinks as cellular energy drains and the electrical charge drops. But under normal or enhanced cellular energy states, that field is massive. This is one reason I think the Masters were so good at creating. They had multitudes of energy, their temple was coherent, and their cells could cause an effect on matter rather than matter always changing them. That field of energy is not something invisible or esoteric — it’s real, measurable, biological energy expressed (Dispenza, 2017).

Moving to the middle, you can see I placed overwhelm, frustration, and worry there. These produce when stress hormone compensation starts exceeding the substrate available to run normally. Anti-metabolic chemistry begins to rise, heart rate variability shifts, coherence drops, and the body starts tapping into adaptive energy reserves. In Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome — this is at the crossroads of moving to exhaustion. Reset your energy here and you can climb back up just fine. Ignore it and you exhaust your reserves, dragging yourself further down the scale (Selye, 1936, 1956).

“Adaptation to any stimulus is always acquired at a cost” —Hans Selye (Selye, 1938)

At the bottom I placed fear, powerlessness, depression. In the cell, oxidative phosphorylation has essentially stopped. Tryptophan and NAD+ are not completing their roles in the kynurenine pathway. The cell is in a fully reduced state. There is literally zero battery left, meaning zero energy to create with. I have felt this at my worst, and it feels like there is no way out. I don’t wish this upon anyone; it feels like a living hell. That is the expression of that chemistry, and on this scale it’s why it’s represented as a flatline (Oxenkrug, 2010; Chen et al., 2021).

One thing I loved from Abraham Hicks is the instruction to move up one step at a time. Meaning that if you are in powerlessness, get angry. What that does is tap into stress energy just a bit to see if you can find your way out of your situation. If you do, you are able to solve it and move up again to let’s say, frustration. That again causes a rise, and hopefully with the right guidance and tools, you can get to boredom. From there, it’s how you can get to the top. Once you understand this, it makes taking decisive, effective action achievable rather than sitting around wondering how you can hop all the way to enlightenment.

So, are you ready to learn how to put all of this into action? I hope so — because going from theory to application is everything. Let’s start with what drains energy first.

What Drains Adaptive Energy Reserves

“if you can’t get beyond your stresses, your problems, and your pain, you can’t create a new future where those things don’t exist.” —Joe Dispenza, Becoming Supernatural, 2017

Hans Selye defined stress as “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it.” That definition is wide on purpose. Stress is not just the thing you’re worried about or work demands. It’s ANYTHING your body has to spend energy responding to, whether you’re conscious of it or not (Selye, 1936, 1956).

This means you really have two options: remove the stressor, or become more resilient to it.

Before we get to building resilience, you need to see what’s draining you. I call these energy leaks. Most people skip this step entirely because it’s not sexy and requires doing some dirty work on your environment or requires learning about energy metabolism. They’d rather start adding supplements and protocols on top of a life that is simply unfulfilling. Stop that.

Here are the drains I see most often in my clients:

• A poor romantic partner choice. The wrong relationship is one of the most metabolically expensive things a person can have. You can be the most dialed in person on the planet with everything health wise — but if your partner is wrong… good luck.

• A crappy diet. If you are eating junk, what do you expect? Do better — here's my FREE High Energy Diet Model if you want a one-page starting point.

• A job you hate, which keeps stress hormones elevated for 8 to 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, with no recovery.

• Lack of financial resources, credit card debt/any negative debt, which is a serious drain that is always on, even when you are sleeping at night.

• Imbalanced endocrine chemistry, such as estrogen dominance, elevated prolactin, low testosterone, low dopamine etc.

• A toxic living environment, whether that’s mold, poor air quality, poor food choices, roommates, isolation, cost of living or no access to sunlight.

• Gut-irritating foods or supplements, which can be a nightmare on gut health, and keeps the nervous system always amped.

• Too much time on that damn phone, which kills awareness and keeps stress up.

• Lack of flow states. Flow states and losing track of time are critical for a beautiful human experience.

• A sedentary lifestyle. I will not explain this further. You have no excuses.

• No study of philosophy, science, spirituality to guide your decisions.

All of these affect mitochondrial energy production. Not in theory, but in measurable, testable ways. If you ask yourself honestly, “What is driving my stress?” your intuition will tell you something. Listen to it, and follow that lead. Intuition is communication from your cells, and if you’d only take a minute to listen to them you might just figure something great out. Resolve these things one at a time, and if it was right, you’ll notice a lightening of the load you are carrying.

How to Manifest Faster

1. Raise the Metabolic Rate

“Keeping the metabolic rate up is the main thing and there are lots of ways to do it” —Ray Peat

At the core of every creation, no matter what, is a metabolism that actually has energy to create with. This really just means you are extremely healthy. The Masters talked about thyroid, which tracks with everything Ray taught from a bioenergetic view. This is a loaded subject, and i’d recommend doing some more research here, whether reading more of my Substack or going straight to the sources below. Ideally as a metric, you are aiming for 98.6F body temp and a resting pulse above 60 bpm as starting targets (Barnes, 1976).

To do that, here are some of my general recommendations:

Eat enough. That sounds obvious, but chronic caloric restriction tanks energy. If you’re in fat loss, this is nuanced. But calories are one of our main sources of energy, so energy balance is ideal. And don’t think you need to overeat for more energy… it doesn’t work like that! (i've tried) Get plenty of fruit, cooked vegetables, quality protein, dairy, eggs, seafood, and root vegetables. Think easy to digest whole foods. I have my clients balance meals so carbohydrates and protein arrive together, such as in a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio of carbs to protein to stabilize blood sugar and prevent unnecessary stress hormone release. Salt to taste, since sodium helps lower aldosterone, adrenaline, and prolactin. Reduce PUFA intake. Eating daily cleansing fibers like Ray’s carrot salad, oat bran or white button mushrooms are helpful as they help keep the gut clean and prevent intestinal irritation.

Additionally, your mitochondria require specific cofactors to run the full cycle. Vitamin B1 for example is one such key. It is the cofactor for pyruvate dehydrogenase, and without it, you can’t even enter the mitochondria to begin the full cycle (Aleshin et al., 2021; Masterjohn, 2022). You also need B2, B3, magnesium, copper and zinc in the right ratios, among others. A dietary approach that maximizes nutrient density and minimizes anti-nutrients is the simplest path in my opinion. Having some “supplemental foods” like liver, oysters, nutritional yeast and eggs would be wise to have frequently rather than relying on supplements for vitamins and minerals. However, I know they are weird foods, so simply just eat cleaner foods that taste good to you.

Other things that are helpful are to get sunlight, exercise, do something creative and ground yourself when you can, then investigate other pro-metabolic substances for your individual needs.

If you want guidance on what to eat, download my FREE High Energy Diet Model. One page to bring with you to the grocery store for easy reference. You will love it.

2. Reorganize Your Structure

“Nature abhors a vacuum.” —Aristotle

As your metabolism improves and mental energy increases, you will suddenly have more to work with. But if you do not adopt new goals or intentions, that energy will fill the old structure. Nature abhors a vacuum, and if you don’t give your energy a productive direction, it will default to more of the same. Trust me, having high thyroid function while sitting on the couch doesn’t help — you still have to apply yourself as it increases.

So take a look at how your days are organized. Look at what you spend time on, who you spend it with, and what you’re building. If the structure of your life was designed when you had no energy, it will not hold the energy you’re creating now. Update it according to what your manifestation target is and match that lifestyle or personality.

Now this should naturally follow metabolism increase. For example, when I was in a low energy state, I would binge watch television everyday for hours. I felt I didn’t have energy to do anything else. But all of a sudden as metabolism picked up, I naturally felt called to do work on a new business project, ceasing that mindless activity without effort. So when that signal comes — follow it.

3. Get Very Clear on Your Creation

If you’ve done the first two well, you now should have the energy + structure to create something new.

But the mistake most make is they have no idea where they want that energy to flow — which is why you need to have a blueprint. Think about it. Wouldn’t it be silly to build a house without a plan? To throw some wood and bricks on grass and hope it comes together? Yet, most people do this when they are trying to manifest their lives.

A clear vision reorients every cell in your body to create in that direction. Get obsessed with it. Write it down. Experience it in your mind and condition it over and over.

These are three simple questions I ask clients to get a start:

What do you want? Describe in as much detail as you can manage.

Why do you want it?

How will you feel when you have it?

When you finish, find a symbol for your creation. A necklace, a custom phone background, or a totem. Something physical that keeps that blueprint at the top of your awareness. This is your reminder for that one manifestation and to simply not forget your vision.

4. Let Go to a Greater Mind

This is the hardest one. But there must be some moment of surrender where you allow things to be the way they are and trust in your higher mind to arrange the details. Working on metabolism makes this possible — it’s pretty much impossible to fully let go from a survival state, since survival physiology is designed to get you to control more, go harder. But from a charged, calm, high energy state, letting go feels natural. It feels like trust and faith that is not forced but flows from an abundance of vital energy.

I remember the first time I truly experienced this. I had eaten well that day, did all the metabolic work for a few weeks up to that point, and I was sitting on my porch swing in the late afternoon. Subtly, I noticed something was different in my mind. The conscious voice — the roommate we all live with in our heads that never shuts up — had gone quiet. The narration was gone. I sat there listening to nature, completely absent of thought, and that state of euphoria lasted half an hour. It felt like heaven on Earth, and I never wanted that moment to end. I had meditated for two years before that moment and never once touched that experience. It was natural, effortless, abundant — a relaxed yet alert, high energy state that I did not have to manufacture. That is what surrender from a good metabolism feels like, and it is not something I could ever achieve from a low energy state no matter how hard I tried to force it.

The Four-Leaf Clover Story

Years ago, I wanted to manifest something fun. I wanted to hold a 4 leaf clover. I did the practice above, and began holding this in my mind everyday. I would see in my mind how it looked, how I would feel to find it, and all the texture of the 4 leaf clover in my hands, building my blueprint. I didn’t open my eyes until I smiled I was so happy. Within a week, I had 3 instances of seeing 4 leaf clovers digitally on my phone and on the television. I wanted a real one! That’s when I realized I didn’t put “real” into my blueprint. A nice cosmic joke.

So I went back on the search for the 4 leaf clover. My job at the time entailed going out to houses and lawns everyday, so 4-5 times a day I was constantly searching for the 4 leaf clover. Examining every lawn. You’d think I was crazy in the backyards hunched over looking at grass! This went on for three months. I was wondering “what the hell was I doing wrong?” Manifesting is silly and doesn’t work is what I was thinking. But, one day I had an experience much like you will have soon.

I had spent one week installing all the metabolic practices in step one, and a few days in — it clicked. I felt wonderful. Lots of energy. Relaxed and awake. Happy. At that time, I thought about this creation and I thought you know what? It’ll come when it’s ready. I fully let go for the first time in my life. An experiment with surrender.

A few hours later, I went to go visit a girl I was seeing — still in a great metabolic state — and right before my very eyes, she said “look what I found today!” as she pulled out a 4 leaf clover and placed it right into my hands. It was the exact vision I had rehearsed so many times. Just like I imagined. I didn’t have to search for it, I didn’t have to scour every backyard for it —I just needed to fully let go from a good state of metabolism. Allow trust in God to provide for you. This concept, once truly realized, changes everything. There must be a moment of surrender where you just fully allow things to be the way they are, and allow a greater mind to take over for you. When that happens, you will be taken care of by the invisible hand, so long as you meet it halfway.

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For years I thought I sucked at manifestation. I did the practices daily, read everything I could find, and watched people around me create things I couldn’t imagine. It just never occurred to me that the problem was metabolic, which is why I wrote this today.

None of this means manifestation doesn’t work, and it isn’t a reason to quit your practice. Do both. Support the metabolism and keep the practice, and when the energy, the good feelings and the synchronicities start showing up — you’ll know it’s working.

The High Energy Approach

If you've been running on empty for years, your metabolism has adapted around the dysfunction. Low thyroid, gut inflammation, estrogen and cortisol entrench, and the whole system locks into a pattern that generic advice can't untangle. That’s the part where most people give up and go back to affirmations.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Keep getting them gains,

Nick

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Nothing here is intended to diagnose or treat any condition. If you're struggling, please work with a qualified, empathetic practitioner. Do your own research, and don't outsource your health decisions to anyone.

References

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Aronson, R., Offman, H.J., Joffe, R.T. & Naylor, C.D. (1996). Triiodothyronine augmentation in the treatment of refractory depression: a meta-analysis. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53(9), 842–848. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK66786/

Bäckström, T. et al. (2022). Positive GABA-A receptor modulating steroids and their antagonists. Journal of Neuroendocrinology. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jne.13013

Barnes, B. (1976). Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness. Harper & Row.

Chen, L.M. et al. (2021). Tryptophan-kynurenine metabolism: a link between the gut and brain for depression in inflammatory bowel disease. Journal of Neuroinflammation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8204445/

Cori, C.F. & Cori, G.T. (1929). Original work on the lactic acid cycle. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1947.

Dispenza, J. (2017). Becoming Supernatural. Hay House.

Gallagher, P. et al. (2008). Antiglucocorticoid treatments for mood disorders. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD005168.pub2/abstract

Hawkins, D.R. (1995). Power vs. Force. Veritas Publishing.

Hicks, E. (2004). Ask and It Is Given. Hay House.

Hinson, J.M., Whitney, P. & Van Dongen, H.P.A. (2021). Total sleep deprivation reduces top-down regulation of emotion without altering bottom-up affective processing. PLOS ONE, 16(9). https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0256983

Joffe, R.T., Singer, W., Levitt, A.J. & Grunhaus, L. (1993). A placebo-controlled comparison of lithium and triiodothyronine augmentation of tricyclic antidepressants. Archives of General Psychiatry, 50(5), 387–393.

Majewska, M.D. et al. (1986). Steroid hormone metabolites are barbiturate-like modulators of the GABA receptor. Science.

Masterjohn, C. (2022). Pyruvate dehydrogenase: why carbs leave your thiamin working overtime.

Myint, A.M. & Kim, Y.K. (2008). A link between stress and depression: shifts in the balance between the kynurenine and serotonin pathways of tryptophan metabolism. Stress. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10253890701754068

Oxenkrug, G.F. (2010). Tryptophan–kynurenine metabolism as a common mediator of genetic and environmental impacts in major depressive disorder: the serotonin hypothesis revisited 40 years later. Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences, 47(1), 56–63. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3021918/

Palmer, C.A. et al. (2024). Sleep loss and emotion: a systematic review and meta-analysis of over 50 years of experimental research. Psychological Bulletin. https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/bul-bul0000410.pdf

Peat, R. (n.d.). Article archive. https://raypeat.com

Protsiv, M. et al. (2020). Decreasing human body temperature in the United States since the Industrial Revolution. eLife. https://elifesciences.org/articles/49555

Selye, H. (1936). A syndrome produced by diverse nocuous agents. Nature, 138, 32.

Selye, H. (1938). Experimental evidence supporting the conception of adaptation energy. American Journal of Physiology, 123, 758–765.

Selye, H. (1956). The Stress of Life. McGraw-Hill.

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“How to have more energy”

“Tired all the time no matter how much I sleep”

…sound familiar?

I bet so, because in 2026, “Why am I so tired” is the most Googled it’s ever been. You’re just f*cking tired of being tired.

And I get it. This was the story of my life for years too.

Wake up, drink coffee, go to work, come home, watch Netflix until I pass out, repeat. An unending fog where I never had enough energy to do more than the bare minimum.

I’d watch my peers pass me by with seemingly limitless energy. I’d check Instagram and see them build another business, take yet another trip, and somehow still be in great shape. What. The. Hell. Was. I. Missing. What did they know that I don’t? How did they have that much energy??

In my quest to conquer fatigue, self-optimization and hustle culture was my next stop. Atomic Habits became my bible. I became a little “neuroscientist” thinking i’d hack my productivity. Embraced Stoicism. Andrew Huberman and David Goggins became my idols. Cold showers, nootropics, breathwork is how i’d start my day everyday. Because you know what? No pain, no gain baby.

Then one day, something broke.

Literally.

I crashed a dirt bike and separated my shoulder. But in my recovery time, I was blessed with a stroke of luck, bringing me to the work of Dr. Ray Peat. I was researching something about gelatin and somehow ended up on one of his articles about chronic fatigue, mitochondria, and energy production. The rabbit hole went deep, and I hopped all the way in. Merging that with my time in self-optimization, spirituality, and stress research- everything clicked.

I feel pretty damn unlimited with my energy now. Each day feels like i’m a kid again waking up on Christmas Day, in that subtle state of euphoria. If you told that to a past version of me, I wouldn’t have believed you.

This article is the answer I wish I had back then. For all the times you typed into Google “why am I so tired” or “how to have more energy”- this is what you’ve been looking for. This is how you get your energy back, and when you apply what’s here, everything changes. My promise is that at the end of reading this, you will no longer struggle with this thought: “I know what I need to do, but I just don’t have the energy to do it.” From today onward, you will know exactly what you need to do- and have the energy to do it.

“Energy is the only life, and is from the body... Energy is eternal delight.” -William Blake

What Exactly Is Energy?

Everyone talks about energy. But no one is clear on what it really is! People say “Your energy is off.” “I don’t have enough energy today.” “That person has good energy.” We use the word constantly without ever defining it.

Here’s the simplest definition I can give you: energy is what separates the living from the dead. A dead cell and a living cell contain the same molecules, the same structures, the same genetic code. The difference is that one is producing energy and the other isn’t. Pretty much, that means one cell has a fire going, and the other has burned out.

That fire is ATP- the molecule your cells produce to power everything you do. Every thought, every heartbeat, every conversation, every moment of presence or creativity or love runs on it. How much you feel, how clearly you think, how healthy you are- all of it stems from how much ATP your cells are producing. This is your lifeforce. It’s real, measurable, biological energy, and the amount you produce determines the quality of your conscious experience on any given day.

But most people go about increasing their energy the wrong way.

We’ve been told that if we need more energy, to reach for caffeine, energy drinks, endorphin rushes from exercise, and wired productivity fueled by cold showers with mental toughness. All of that is technically energy- but it’s borrowed energy, manufactured through stress chemistry, robbing tomorrow to pay for right now. You feel something, but the source is draining you. You’re not producing more energy… you’re just spending the energy you do have faster. It works until you are broken, and the energy debt has to be paid. This is why you could get away with this in your 20s, but after 40- you can’t go about business as you used to.

But the energy I’m talking about is different. It’s a relaxed alertness. A sense of being on, of flow. Time passes in a state of presence, a subtle euphoria, rather than anxiety. Everything feels right, nothing feels wrong, and you have full capacity to meet whatever life asks of you.

That’s what happens when ATP production is high. That is the energy you are really after. And when it’s not- that’s when everything starts to break down, leading to the energy issues you face.

The Two Energy States

Most people have no idea how bad they feel because they’ve felt that way for so long. Low energy doesn’t say “hey, you’re tired, stop doing that bad thing please” rather, it sneaks up so slowly you’re not aware of it until it’s too late. One day you just notice that your life feels worse than ever and you can’t remember when it first happened.

Here’s what the low energy state actually looks like.

You can’t sit still without guilt. Rest feels lazy, so you stay busy- not because you’re productive, but because stopping forces you to feel how empty the tank really is. You mistake the restlessness for drive, but it’s not. It’s what adrenaline feels like when you compensate for a body that isn’t producing stable, relaxed energy.

Joy gets muted. There are no real highs or lows anymore. You’re just... existing. Going through your routine on autopilot, watching other people’s adventures on your phone because the couch feels safer than living your own. Life looks black and white, and you’ve forgotten it was ever in color.

Your mind never stops. You can’t eat a meal without planning the next three things. You can’t hold a conversation without rehearsing your response. You can’t fall asleep without replaying the day. The roommate in your head, the one that narrates every fear, every worst-case scenario- never shuts up. And you think that’s just who you are. But it’s not. That’s a “mind” driven by high cortisol.

Now, here’s what real energy feels like.

You wake up and you’re ready. Not wired, not forcing yourself out of bed- just clear. Your mind is quiet and your body feels warm and willing. You don’t need to psych yourself into the day because the day already feels worth showing up for. You go through the day fully awake, no daze.

You feel things again. The morning light hits different. Music moves you. You look at someone you love and actually see them- not battling your own thoughts while sitting there with them, but with your full attention. Conversations stop being performances and start being connections. People tell you there’s something different about you, and you can’t quite explain what changed.

Work becomes effortless. Work feels like a thing that pulls you forward instead of something you grind through. Your energy doesn’t spike and crash, it’s steady. Ideas flood to you. You feel alert during the day, clear, and not fully drained by 5pm. You have an excess of energy, not needing to tap into “no pain, no gain.”

This is not a fantasy state. You can live here everyday. That’s what happens when your cells are producing energy the way they were designed to. And the difference between these two states isn’t your willpower, discipline, or mindset… it’s metabolic. It’s how much ATP, the source of your energy in your cells, is actually being produced from your oxidative metabolism.

When production is high, you live in the second state. When it’s low, your body switches to a backup system that runs on the hormones of stress to keep you functional, but not energetic.

So the question for energy levels then isn’t “how do I get more motivated” or “how do I build better habits.” The question is: what’s keeping your cells from producing energy in the first place- and how do you fix it?

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

How to Get Your Energy Back

“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” -Aristotle

Now you understand the problem. Your cells aren’t producing enough ATP, so your body compensates with stress hormones that feel like energy but aren’t. The fix isn’t another hack or supplement or morning routine… as anything that doesn’t go straight to the cell is wasting time. It’s removing what’s blocking energy production, restoring what’s missing, and then amplifying what’s working.

First, Remove What’s Draining You.

Before you add anything new, you have to stop the leak. Most people skip this step entirely… you keep trying new supplements and protocols, and that’s like throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping it sticks. Quit that, and correct the cell instead.

Stop Your Energy Leaks

An energy leak is anything that drains you slowly, so gradually you stop noticing it’s there. What I mean is this: Think about your unfulfilling work, friends that are not your “friends” but just people that exist around you, or the mountain of obligations you keep signing up for. Pair that with simply existing in 2026… your energy is spread incredibly thin. Your body then slows you down in an attempt to conserve what energy you have left!

Put simply, your body directs energy toward whatever it’s organized around. Muscles grow toward the load you give them. Neural grooves strengthen toward the thoughts you repeat. Your hormonal profile shifts toward the emotional states you live in most. When your days are spent in draining work, around draining people, consumed by draining content… your biology reorganizes itself around depletion. Structure follows energy, and your energy follows your attention.

So get real and ask; “Where is my attention going?”

While reading this, something came to mind, a relationship, a commitment, a habit, a pattern. You felt something pop into your mind. That is likely what you need to address first. Make a change there now.

Next thing you do is measure every thing you do against this question: “Do I feel grateful and energized, or guilty and tired after doing this?” That feeling is your answer. Design your day to day around gratitude and energization, and you’ll naturally plug all energy leaks. This is top level, and for all the biological means below to work- you must first call your energy back to you.

Fix Your Digestion

Now, your gut is either your greatest energy source or your greatest energy drain. There is no neutral. I cannot emphasize how important digestion is.

Digestion is one of the most energy-expensive processes your body performs. When you eat foods that are difficult to break down (excessive raw vegetables, processed foods, “healthy” foods that aren’t really healthy, things you have sensitivities to) you spend more energy processing the meal than you extract from it. You ate and got more tired. Doesn’t that feel backwards considering food is our main caloric energy source? We should be able to eat more food, and feel better after eating it. But when the gut is compromised, endotoxin leaks into the bloodstream and triggers an inflammatory response that diverts your ATP toward damage control. That is why under any stress or low energy state, digestion is one of the first things to collapse.

The fix isn’t complicated here. Eat foods your body can actually break down and convert into energy without resistance. Think ripe fruits, well-cooked vegetables, meat, eggs, dairy, seafood. These are dense in nutrients and easy on digestion.

Next, if you can’t digest anything, look at stomach acid, which goes hand in hand with low energy, because low stomach acid is often driven by low thyroid function. Either by first restoring thyroid function (keep reading) or having some betaine, bitters or acv can help here.

Next, eat breakfast within 90 minutes of waking, and eat enough at each meal to go three to five hours before the next one. This gives your digestive system clean windows to do its work instead of constantly processing in a stressed, half-finished state. Having some quality fiber sources, like white button mushrooms, raw carrots or some oat bran, does wonders for gut inflammation that could be draining you energy.

Stabilize Your Blood Sugar

Your meals should also stabilize your blood sugar. This is the energy skill no one taught you, and it might be the single most impactful change on this list.

I mean just think about it. One day you have grand visions of the future, motivated, ready to go- but you eat one off meal and boom- you’re scared of the challenge and shrink back into your shell! Why does that happen? Every time your blood sugar crashes, your body releases countrregulatory hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, to rescue your blood sugar. That little hint of stress feels anxious, or you feel unstable. Your energy in that state can’t focus on the big things- like a big work task. As that cycle repeats all day, and you crash again, you are on a roller coaster that never stops.

Fasting can also make this worse. If you are already drained with energy reserves, this is more harmful than good. When you skip meals, your body has to manufacture glucose through cortisol. That “sharp” feeling during a fast, is simply stress chemistry. And as soon as you eat, it shuts down the stress response and then you are lying on the couch after your fasting window. Is that high energy? no.

The goal then is simple: keep blood sugar steady so your body never has to rescue it. You’re not being chased by a tiger and dealing with no food supply- so increase metabolism instead of lowering it! Eat within 90 minutes of waking, three to five meals a day. Protein, carbohydrate, fiber and fat at every meal. No massive carb loads by themselves or massive protein loads by themselves. Pair them! With stable blood sugar, stress hormone compensation goes down, releasing more energy to drive thyroid function, leading to more ATP production. This one change directly affects cellular energy.

Next, Restore What’s Missing.

So you first start by stopping the energy leaks. Now, rebuild the system. Even after you remove what’s draining you, your body still needs specific raw materials to produce energy. Without them, it doesn’t matter how clean your diet is or how stable your blood sugar stays, your mitochondria can’t finish the job of oxidative metabolism.

Optimize Thyroid Function

If there is one thing that determines your energy more than anything else, it’s your thyroid.

Your thyroid sets the speed of every metabolic process in your body. When it’s high, everything works, better, faster, smarter. Gut motility improves, cognition is better, mood stabilizes while fat loss and muscle gain are a breeze. But when T3 is low, everything slows down. Your thinking gets foggy, digestion stalls, you feel cold all the time, and your body starts compensating with stress hormones just to keep you upright. This feels like losing your mind and forgetting everything. That compensation is what most people experience as their baseline- and they have no idea it’s happening.

The biggest thing here i’ve seen in low thyroid people is they have no leftover energy. You only have enough energy to work, feed yourself and watch TV. There is no energy available for you to do more than what is asked of you. You do one thing good- but that’s it. This is exemplified by the words of Broda Barnes;

Now, your liver does the critical work of converting inactive thyroid hormone (T4) into the active form (T3), and it needs specific nutrients to do that: zinc, selenium, copper, and adequate carbohydrate to keep liver glycogen in check. When any of these are missing, conversion slows and energy drops, even if your thyroid gland itself is fine.

Next, excess cortisol or estrogen will impact thyroid function significantly. Cortisol will drive a conversion of T3 into rT3- or the literal slowing down of your energy. It’s the metabolic brake. If you are in a stressful environment, and you want your thyroid to be high- you must make a change. This means where you live, who you’re with, what you eat, how much you exercise. All things that help thyroid are anti-stress, so anything that helps with stressors will aid your energy.

With estrogen, Hans Selye pointed out that at the “shock” phase of a stressor, there is an abundance of estrogen release. Overtime, with elevation, this can drain your adaptive energy. So making attempts at balancing estrogen and excreting it will dramatically help. Anti-stress substances here are white button mushrooms, enough carbohydrate- or using substances like agmatine sulfate, taurine, rhodiola+selenium or DHEA/Progesterone to aid.

The foods that support thyroid function best are the ones you’d expect by now: liver, oysters, eggs, dairy, red meat, and carbohydrates. If digestion is sluggish, cooked mushrooms, raw carrots, and oat bran help keep things moving. If your nutrition is dialed in and you’re still running cold and slow, work with a practitioner who actually understands thyroid (meaning they go off symptoms, not labs alone), and obtain thyroid hormone replacement, such as NDT (natural desiccated thyroid) or T4/T3 medications. Using combo thyroid therapies tends to produce better results here.

Read my full guide on restoring thyroid function naturally here.

Fill Nutrient Deficiencies

Think of your mitochondria as a well built assembly line. ATP production requires cofactors at every step- and when even one is missing, the whole line bottlenecks. This means you can eat enough calories, sleep eight hours, and manage stress well, but if a single mineral is absent, your cells still can’t produce the energy you need.

And what sucks is that modern food is calorically abundant and nutritionally stripped. Soil depletion, industrial farming, and processed food mean you can eat 3,000 calories a day and still be malnourished at the cellular level. Overfed and undernourished- that’s the modern condition. It’s also why most are overweight and exhausted at the same time.

The solution is to eat foods that pack the most nutrition into every bite while being easy to digest. Red meat, eggs, milk, organs, oysters, and fruit cover the vast majority of what your mitochondria need to run the assembly line. For the gaps that are hard to fill through food alone- magnesium, eggshell calcium, B1 TTFD, and niacinamide are the most common bottlenecks worth addressing for energy production.

Outside of good food, I personally use 200-500mg niacinamide for NAD+ (your direct precursor to energy production) and 3-4g of taurine a day to keep relaxed and alert.

If you need simple guidance, download my FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s literally made for mitochondrial function. Shows you what to eat and how much… bring with you to the grocery store. Enjoy.

Get Sunlight

This one is so simple that you’ll dismiss it. Don’t!

Sunlight does more for your energy than any supplement you’ll ever buy. Beyond vitamin D, (which is also critical for energy levels) sunlight directly stimulates an enzyme in your mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase. In plain terms: sunlight literally speeds up your cellular energy production. Photons from the sun hit your cells and your mitochondria work faster.

Sunlight also sets your cortisol rhythm properly- high in the morning, low at night- which is foundational for steady energy throughout the day. It increases dopamine, which is why you feel genuinely happier and more motivated after time outside. And it supports carbon dioxide production, which improves oxygen delivery to your tissues, which means better metabolism everywhere.

If you struggle with energy and you spend most of your day indoors under artificial light… this is the lowest-hanging fruit available to you. You’re not allowed to complain about your energy levels anymore if you’re not seeing the sun. Twenty to thirty minutes of direct sunlight, as often as possible. It’s not that hard. Get outside.

Finally, Amplify What’s Working.

The first things we discussed optimized the temple to produce energy, Now, this layer is what takes you from “I feel okay” to “I feel like a completely different person.” Once energy production is restored, these are the things that compound it, generating energy upon energy.

Move and Breathe

Movement generates energy. And not just because you get exercise endorphins, but more so for the fact you’ll increase oxygen delivery into your cells. That is what gives you real, relaxed energy.

With that, the goal of your exercise shouldn’t just be about burning calories or building muscle, rather make it about enhancing oxygen delivery to every tissue in your body. Your cells use that oxygen to produce ATP. When you move, you push more oxygen into more places, and your mitochondria produce more energy as a direct result. Quality exercise also builds new mitochondria, improves how well your body uses glucose, and raises your baseline metabolic rate. You don’t just feel better during the workout. You feel better for hours and days afterward because your cells are literally more capable of producing energy.

Proper exercise also increases carbon dioxide production. Carbon dioxide is what drives oxygen into your cells- when CO2 is higher, oxygen releases from your blood more efficiently and reaches your mitochondria where it’s actually needed. One of the simplest ways to keep CO2 elevated is to breathe through your nose. Nasal breathing slows your breath rate, retains CO2, and keeps oxygen delivery high. Mouth breathing dumps CO2 and makes your metabolism less efficient. This one shift- nose breathing during exercise and throughout your day- makes a measurable difference in how much energy you produce.

Now, you’ve noticed I’ve said proper exercise. Proper exercise simply means don’t kill yourself. You don’t need to run everyday, gasping for air, or go to failure and grunt lifting weights. Proper exercise is about stimulating life, rather than exhaustion, which will promote excess stress and drain energy reserves.

For training itself, the approach is straightforward. Walk, ride your bike, play a sport you enjoy. This stuff should be fun, not a grind. For resistance training, lift heavy and focus on the concentric part of the lift. Your workouts shouldn’t destroy you… you don’t need to bodybuild or go to failure all of the time. If you feel wrecked for two days after a session and your emotions are whack- you went too hard! The goal is to leave the gym feeling empowered, not drained. Train to build strength, breathe through your nose, and let the energy spiral upward over time.

Slow Down

When you are running on stress hormones as energy compensation, everything feels urgent, important and like the world will end if you don’t get it done now. This is an illusion. And if you want to balance this… slow down to speed up. Here’s why.

Your brain runs on glucose and oxygen just like every other organ, but it demands far more of both. The average brain consumes roughly twenty percent of your body’s energy at rest. Which means the quality of your thoughts is a metabolic issue.

When you ruminate- looping on the same fears, the same unresolved problems, the same imagined futures- you’re spending ATP without producing anything in return. (Pretty crappy return right?) But the real cost isn’t the energy spent thinking. It’s what that thinking does to your hormones. Chronic mental stress keeps cortisol elevated for hours. That cortisol suppresses thyroid conversion, raises blood sugar, degrades gut function, and locks you into the low energy state- all from thoughts alone. The person who spends eight hours in anxious thought and the person who spends eight hours in creative flow produce completely different biochemical profiles by the end of the day. Different cortisol, different thyroid activity, different energy.

This is why meditation produces health benefits that seem out of proportion to the act of sitting quietly. You’re allowing stress hormones to drop and adaptive energy to recharge. When you allow your nervous system to shift, long term repair begins again, recharging your real biological energy. Taking extra time to go slower might be the most metabolically productive thing you do all day.

Now, you don’t have to sit cross-legged and chant. Simply walk without headphones or sit outside for five minutes without checking your phone. Read a physical book. Play with your dog. Stare at a wall- seriously. You are not “too busy” to do this. Stop that. A rested mind produces in one hour what a fried mind grinds out in five. It may feel unproductive doing these things, but that’s the beautiful thing about life. It’s counterintuitive to your stress mind, and it’s exactly what you need to break out- and as a result, get the results you were after in the first place- a deep, focused energy and higher productivity.

Stay Curious

Being alive is good for you. But most adults have stopped living, and killed their capacity to experience our world. Same routine, same route, same people, same content, every single day. My goodness, with a life like that, I would be low energy too! So the answer here is to return color to your life, to allow novelty to come in, and allow your body to rise to meet the newfound baseline you’ve uncovered.

Dopamine drives anticipation, motivation, and engagement. It’s what makes you lean forward into life instead of sinking back into the couch. Novel experiences- new places, new people, new skills, new challenges- force your brain into a state of heightened attention, and that attention generates sustained energy in a way that routine never can. This is why a weekend in a city you’ve never visited leaves you more energized than a weekend doing the same thing you always do.

The fix is almost stupidly simple. Do something new. It can be something ridiculous, like fighting some imaginary bears in your pantry or go play outside and think up an imaginary battle in your mind like you did as a kid. Or if you are not as crazy as I am, take a different route to work or cook a recipe you’ve never tried. Novelty shouldn’t be a luxury in your life, but essential. You have time to do this if you only make it a priority. Doing something new interrupts the overthinking patterns you find yourself in and stops the pattern long enough for you to make a new choice. That’s why. So again, like the sun, you can’t complain about your energy levels if you don’t try doing something fun every once in a while.

Rest Without Guilt

Now, as your energy comes back- and it will- something unexpected will happen… You’ll feel a wave of tiredness that seems to contradict all the progress you’re making.

Don’t panic. This isn’t the old tired. This is different. As energy rises, stress compensation drops, and your body is finally beginning repair work it’s been deferring for months or years because it never had the metabolic resources to spare. With better energy production, your system starts allocating that new energy toward rebuilding what was neglected: gut lining, hormonal balance, nervous system regulation. That process requires rest.

This is the moment where most people sabotage themselves. They feel the tiredness, interpret it as regression, and reach for caffeine again or push harder. That’s the old pattern- the borrowed energy trap that you will yo yo for the rest of your existence if you don’t learn to rest here. Don’t fall back in. Think of it like a child who’s been running around all morning and is ready for a nap- they don’t fight it. They sleep, and then they bounce back up full of life. That’s the model we are going for!

Allow yourself to rest. You don’t need to be “on” every waking minute. The rest is part of the biological upgrade. On the other side of it is a version of you that is fully alive, fully there, fully in love with life- and has the energy to experience it.

The Missing Piece

“A person’s vitality is drawn forward by meaningful work, that is, we grow to meet the demands of an important opportunity.” -Ray Peat, Generative Energy

Imagine this- waking up everyday and it feeling like Christmas morning as a kid. You can make this your life if you so choose.

As you optimize your oxidative metabolism, invisible forces will ask you to make decisions to use your newfound energy. You will be asked to rise to meaningful work or opportunities, and you must seize them. If you don’t step up, and live what is your “purpose”- energy will be unwilling to flow and you will regress to old patterns that got you stuck in the first place.

“He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.” -William Blake

Every tradition that's thought deeply about human potential arrived at the same conclusion as this. The yogic concept of dharma- your unique path- Christianity’s concept of calling- the vocation placed in your heart- are what i’m talking about here. These aren’t abstract spiritual ideas, but they’re descriptions of a biological reality: your body produces more energy when your life is organized around something that matters to you.

And when you pair that alignment with a body that can actually produce energy, that's when something shifts.

I think this is what Christ was pointing at:

People who run high energy are like little children- they don’t have to motivate themselves to play and they don’t need coffee to get out of bed. They are high energy little things. They run on alignment so pure it looks effortless- because it is. Their metabolism is high, their stress is low, and everything they do is an expression of genuine interest. That’s the natural state of a human being whose energy is flowing in the right direction from a robust metabolism.

Restoring your biology gets you the energy to escape helpless states you’ve found yourself in and begin uncovering what this is for you. And when both are in place, something shifts that’s hard to describe until you feel it… a sense that each day is less of an obligation to survive and more of an invitation to be alive.

Following the path you’re uniquely suited to walk, with an optimized energy system in your body, is what generates the elevated emotions that sustain endless energy. That’s the High Energy State. That’s Heaven on Earth. That’s unlimited energy.

The High Energy Approach

Everything in this article is free, and it always will be. If it gave you something valuable, subscribe- I’ll keep sending you things worth reading.

But if your energy has been broken for months or years, an article gives you the map. It doesn’t walk the road for you.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Do your own research, work with someone qualified, and don’t outsource your health decisions to anyone — including me.

Years later after my sports era, I’d sit across from my clients dealing with the same things- joint pain that wouldn’t resolve. Autoimmune conditions that kept flaring. Fatigue that no doctor could explain. Weight that wouldn’t move. Their doctors tell them to “lower inflammation”. What does that even mean? Take more drugs? Well, that's what this article is about- what's actually driving inflammation at the source, and why almost nobody goes as deep as we’re about to go.

It’s a section of health that many refuse to get into, because it is easier and more profitable to take a pill, avoid lifestyle change and manage symptoms. The anti-inflammatory drug market is a $142 billion industry, with ibuprofen, prednisone, naproxen- among the most used drugs on the entire planet. And it’s only going to continue to skyrocket as our environment worsens, with projections to hit $327 billion by 2035.

Chronic inflammatory diseases are the most significant cause of death in the world. 3 out of 5 people on this planet will die from inflammation-related causes- heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, neurodegenerative disorders. Sixty percent of all human death traces back to inflammation. Is it the sole cause of all disease? No. But those numbers are pretty spectacular.

So what’s deeper? Why has no one discussed the energetic causes of inflammation, or how to get relief without a lifetime of prescriptions? Why does a $142 billion industry exist to suppress symptoms while the upstream causes go completely unaddressed?

Today, that’s what we’re discussing. How to actually get relief- not by blocking one enzyme for four hours, but by understanding what inflammation is at the cellular level, why your body can’t shut it off, and what to do about it.

A Society of Sick People Who Don't Even Know It

“US people don’t realize how ridiculously degraded their standard of living has become. Nutrition is political economical. The governments tell people to eat beans and bread for a reason.” -Ray Peat

When you step back and look at the modern environment we’ve built for ourselves, it’s easy to understand how we are slowly inflamming ourselves without even realizing it.

We’ve adapted to a marketer’s dream. A population that will buy anything, believe anything, and question nothing. And as you are broken down by that system, your state of consciousness lowers to the point where you don’t even realize you’re sick. You become a horse with blinders on, guided through a fast food drive-through and an Amazon checkout page, convinced you’re making choices when the choices were made for you before you woke up this morning.

That has made you a very profitable individual, and it will only continue to get worse. And when you see through the veil, it all makes sense.

We live indoors. Blue light- which was originally studied as a way to increase “alertness” through stress hormones in office workers- pours into your eyes 16 hours a day, disrupting the circadian genes that control inflammation. Red light is itself an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, yet most people barely see natural sunlight anymore, the most basic expression of life in our cells. Then Netflix keeps you up past midnight, further deregulating the time of stillness your immune system depends on to repair itself.

The food system is designed around shelf stability and profit margins rather than human biology. There’s an increase of 8,000% in seed oil consumption from 1900. Your favorite “health” food is actually a subsidiary of Nestlé, Kellogg’s, or tied to a pharmaceutical conglomerate. One side of the industry engineers the foods that break you down, and the other side sells you the drug that “reverses” the damage. Wheat is in everything while sugar gets demonized and seed oils get a pass. Grains are subsidized, fruit is expensive, and liver- the single most nutrient-dense food on the planet- is something most of you have never eaten in your life.

Stress levels that would have been considered clinical emergencies two generations ago are now normalized as “just how life is,” with cortisol patterns that never reset and nervous systems locked in sympathetic overdrive from the morning alarm to the midnight scroll.

All of these things cripple metabolism, which cripples your ability to be a sovereign, free individual.

Most people walking around right now are chronically inflamed and have no idea. They’ve adapted to the fatigue, normalized the brain fog, accepted the weight gain, and convinced themselves this is just what aging feels like. But it’s not aging- it’s a metabolic environment that was never designed for human biology, slowly degrading every system from the inside.

That’s the mechanism behind every degenerative disease on the planet- heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, autoimmunity, cancer. All roads lead back to chronic systemic inflammation and the energy crisis underneath it.

Now, I hope you get the idea that environment plays a significant role in inflammation. Let’s go deeper in understanding what inflammation really is within your body.

What Even Is Inflammation?

Everyone says it's inflammation. Your doctor, your influencer, your favorite podcast love to use this word on repeat. But nobody explains what it really means. So let's do that.

Inflammation is the body’s immune system’s response to an irritant. It’s a threat, a signal that something is wrong. There are two kinds:

Acute inflammation is when you cut your finger and the area turns red, swells, gets warm, hurts. White blood cells flood the area, neutralize the threat, clear the debris, and leave. The response starts, does its job, and resolves. That’s acute inflammation, and it means your body is working exactly as designed.

Chronic inflammation is something else entirely- a persistent, low-grade activation of the immune system with no clear invader, no wound, no infection, and no resolution. It runs in the background consuming energy, degrading tissue, disrupting hormones, and slowly breaking the body down from the inside while you go about your life barely noticing it.

What makes chronic inflammation so dangerous is how insidious it is. There’s no dramatic event that announces its presence, no fever, no visible wound. Instead it shows up as fatigue that sleep doesn’t fix, as joint stiffness that greets you every morning, as weight that refuses to move despite eating less, as brain fog that rolls in after lunch and doesn’t lift, as skin that keeps breaking out no matter what products you try. It shows up as digestion that alternates between constipation and chaos, as anxiety that seems to come from nowhere, as chronic illness that doctors can’t explain because the standard labs look “normal.”

Know These Markers

At the molecular level, chronic inflammation has a specific signature. You don’t need to be a biochemist here- but I’d recommend becoming familiar with these compounds so you have the ability to take action for yourself. These are the key players:

NF-κB (Nuclear Factor Kappa-B)- the master inflammatory switch. When activated, it enters the nucleus of your cells and turns on genes that produce inflammatory proteins. Almost every chronic disease involves NF-κB staying on too long. Endotoxin from gut bacteria, oxidized PUFAs, excess cortisol- ll activate NF-κB.

(Fun fact, the common thing in centenarians and super-centenarians is not diet- but having low levels of NF-κB in their body.)

TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6- (Pronounced TNF-”Alpha” & IL- one-“Beta”) These are cytokines. They pretty much are a communication signal. Think of them as distress signals between cells. In chronic inflammation, these signals never stop sending. TNF-α is so central to inflammatory disease that the best-selling drugs ever in history are designed to block it.

Prostaglandins- Inflammatory lipid molecules made from arachidonic acid (an omega-6 fatty acid stored in your cells). The most inflammatory of these, PGE2 causes pain, swelling, fever, and suppresses thyroid function. This is what aspirin and ibuprofen block. The more arachidonic acid in your tissues, the more PGE2 your body can produce on demand. And arachidonic acid comes from the linoleic acid in seed oils…

NLRP3 inflammasome- Put simply, it’s a sensor that assembles inside your cells when it detects danger. When NLRP3 activates, it processes IL-1β into its mature, active form and can trigger pyroptosis- an inflammatory form of cell death where the cell essentially explodes and spreads the inflammation to surrounding tissue. Sounds bad right? It is. This is the bridge between metabolic dysfunction and immune activation inside the cell. A ketone body called beta-hydroxybutyrate inhibits this; which is one reason why keto can be therapeutic for inflammation control (beyond excessive cortisol release acting like cortisone shots.)

Go ahead and get familiar with these terms. Knowing them will help tremendously, and help make sense of all the interventions in this article, since everything related back to these. But before the tactical interventions, let’s dive into energy production in your cells.

The Energy Connection

Let’s build our inflammation model a bit further- now down to our cells.

Your cells produce energy through a process called oxidative phosphorylation, where glucose enters the mitochondria- (the powerhouse of the cell!)- and gets fully oxidized into roughly 36 units of ATP (your energy currency), plus CO2 and water. It’s clean, efficient, and high output; A highly evolved way of producing energy. We want this.

But when a cell is stressed, inflamed, or damaged, it shifts to a backup pathway called glycolysis. Same glucose goes in, but only 2 ATP come out. The byproduct is lactate instead of CO2. 18 times less energy from the same fuel.

This metabolic shift- from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis- IS the inflammatory signal. Lactate accumulates, free fatty acids rise, reactive oxygen species (ROS) leak from damaged mitochondria, and all of these activate NF-κB, which produces more cytokines, which damage more mitochondria, which produces more ROS. The loop goes on.

“Cancer, above all other diseases, has countless secondary causes. But, even for cancer, there is only one prime cause. The prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar.”-Otto Warburg, 1966

But the $142 billion industry doesn’t tell you this: that resolving inflammation is an active, energy-dependent process. Your immune cells need to switch from attack mode (M1 macrophages, which run on glycolysis) to cleanup mode (M2 macrophages, which run on oxidative phosphorylation) That switch REQUIRES ATP. Dead cells need to be cleared. That also requires ATP. Damaged tissue needs to be repaired. That ALSO requires ATP!

Every step of resolution requires the very energy that inflammation is destroying.

A cell stuck in glycolysis cannot power the tools necessary to clear inflammation, so it becomes self-perpetuating. The inflammation suppresses energy production, and the low energy prevents inflammation from resolving. The loop tightens with every pass, getting worse as you age since you didn’t figure this out soon enough.

When you restore mitochondrial function, reduce the inflammatory substrate, give the body enough energy- the immune system can resolve inflammation on its own. Because that’s what it was designed to do when it has the resources as an intelligent system.

Now, I wish our cells gave us a check engine light. But they don’t. So we have to listen to biofeedback such as…

How to Know If You’re Inflamed

I’ll go ahead and say it. You’re probably inflamed haha. Here are some signs:

Your Body

Chronic fatigue. This is the hallmark. You get seven or eight hours and wake up feeling like you got four. That’s because your mitochondria are producing 2 ATP per glucose instead of 36, and no amount of sleep compensates for a cellular energy crisis.

Joint stiffness, especially in the morning. Inflammatory cytokines accumulate in the synovial fluid of your joints overnight while you’re not moving. They degrade the cartilage matrix and increase fluid retention in your joints during this time. When you wake up and try to move, you’re pushing through swollen, cytokine-saturated tissue! The stiffness eases as you move because circulation clears some of the inflammatory debris… but it returns every night because the source was never addressed.

Persistent puffiness and water retention. Prostaglandins increase vascular permeability- they make blood vessel walls leaky, allowing fluid to seep into surrounding tissue. That’s the puffiness in your face in the morning, the rings that feel tight on your fingers, the socks that leave impressions on your ankles. Histamine from activated mast cells does the same thing. You retain water not because you’re drinking too much or eating too much salt, but because your blood vessels are leaking fluid into tissue due to inflammatory signaling.

Skin that won’t clear up. Acne, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea- the skin is the gut turned inside out. When the intestinal barrier is compromised and the liver is overwhelmed with endotoxin and estrogen, toxins that should have been cleared through the gut and liver exit through the skin instead. Dermatologists treat the surface with creams and retinoids while the source sits three feet lower. If your skin keeps breaking out despite a clean skincare routine… the signal is coming from your gut and liver, not your pores.

Digestive chaos. Bloating after meals, gas that makes people cry, constipation that stretches to three or four days, or diarrhea that strikes without warning… they’re signs of intestinal inflammation, bacterial overgrowth, and compromised barrier integrity. The gut lining turns over every 3-5 days and requires enormous amounts of ATP to regenerate. When energy production is low, the lining thins, tight junctions loosen, motility slows, bacteria overgrow, and digestion becomes a daily source of stress instead of nourishment.

Chronic pain that migrates. Your shoulder hurts for a week, then it’s your knee, then your lower back, then your neck. What gives! Migratory pain without clear injury is a classic sign of systemic inflammation- circulating cytokines sensitize pain receptors throughout the body, and whichever tissue is under the most mechanical stress at any given time becomes the one to tell you. The pain isn’t necessarily the joint or muscle, but the pain is in the blood, carried by inflammatory mediators looking for a place to land.

Your Metabolism

Weight that won’t budge despite eating less. You cut calories, you exercise more, and the scale doesn’t move- or it moves for two weeks and then stops dead. That’s because chronic inflammation drives insulin resistance through TNF-α and endotoxin acting on insulin receptors, and your body compensates by producing more insulin. Meanwhile, the caloric restriction raises cortisol, which suppresses thyroid, which lowers metabolic rate, which means you burn even fewer calories at rest. I get it, it sucks. So know you’re not failing to lose weight because you lack discipline. You’re failing because the inflammatory environment has shifted your hormonal landscape into storage mode, and restriction only deepens the problem.

Cold hands, feet & low body temperature. When your waking temperature is consistently below 97.8°F, your thyroid output is insufficient to drive oxidative phosphorylation at the rate your body needs. Every degree below optimal represents millions of mitochondria running slower than they should, producing less ATP, less CO2, and less heat. Cold extremities mean your body is rationing blood flow to preserve core temperature- which means peripheral tissues (including joints, skin, and the gut) are getting less oxygen, less nutrient delivery, and less immune surveillance. Cold is a metabolic symptom, and it tells you exactly how much energy your cells aren’t making. Everyone I’ve had that’s come into coaching with myriad problems runs a low body temperature.

Sugar cravings that spike mid-afternoon and energy crashes after meals. Both are signs of liver glycogen depletion and blood sugar instability. When the liver runs out of stored glycogen, cortisol and adrenaline spike to mobilize glucose through gluconeogenesis- breaking down muscle tissue to keep blood sugar from crashing. That cortisol spike suppresses thyroid, increases gut permeability, and creates an inflammatory cascade from what should have been a routine metabolic handoff. The 2-3 PM crash, the 4 AM wake-up with racing thoughts, the desperate craving for something sweet- these are your adrenal glands compensating for a liver that’s running on empty, and every compensation is an inflammatory event.

Your Emotions

This signal gets dismissed the most- yet it might matter the most.

Anxiety that seems to come from nowhere. Over 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut, and peripheral serotonin is a stress mediator- not the “feel-good” molecule that popular culture celebrates. An inflamed gut overproduces serotonin, which promotes cortisol release, constricts blood vessels, and amplifies the stress response. The anxiety you feel sitting at your desk for no apparent reason may not be psychological at all, rather it may be your inflamed intestines flooding your system with a stress hormone that your brain interprets as danger. The vagus nerve carries that signal directly from gut to brainstem, and the brain responds with the only emotion that matches: “something is wrong, but I can’t tell you what.”

Irritability, short fuse, emotional volatility. When blood sugar is unstable, when cortisol is chronically elevated, when thyroid is low, the nervous system has no energy reserves available. Then every minor stressor feels major because your body is already operating at the edge of its adaptive capacity. You snap at your spouse, you lose patience with your kids, you feel overwhelmed by tasks that used to feel routine- and then you feel guilty about the reaction, which produces more stress, which deepens the cycle. The irritability isn’t a character flaw, but simply a metabolic symptom of a system running without energy available to you to make an elevated decision.

Brain fog. Get this- TNF-α and IL-6 directly impair hippocampal function- the brain region responsible for memory consolidation and cognitive clarity. Endotoxin in the bloodstream triggers brain inflammation, and the resulting cerebral inflammation slows processing speed, impairs working memory, and creates the subjective experience of cognitive thickness that caffeine can’t clear. Brain fog is brain inflammation, and brain inflammation is almost always downstream of gut inflammation.

Depression that doesn’t respond to therapy alone. If the inflammatory load is high enough, no amount of cognitive reframing resolves the heaviness. Steve Cole’s research showed that chronic inflammation literally reprograms gene expression in immune cells toward a pattern associated with social defeat and withdrawal. The depression isn’t a thinking error, but it’s a biological state driven by cytokines that evolved to make sick animals retreat from the pack, conserve energy, and stop eating (sickness behavior). When the inflammation clears, the heaviness lifts in a way that feels qualitatively different from a good therapy session- because the source was not exclusively in the mind... it was in the blood.

A persistent feeling that something is fundamentally wrong but you can’t name it. This is common, yet no one knows why. Everything in your life might be objectively fine- good job, loving family, roof over your head- and yet there’s this low-grade unease that sits in your chest or your belly and won’t leave! That sensation is often the somatic expression of chronic systemic inflammation. Elevated cortisol, gut-derived serotonin, and inflammatory cytokines produce a physiological state that the brain interprets as “something is wrong” because, from the body’s perspective, something IS wrong. This isn’t a existential crisis, but metabolic in nature.

The mind matters too- and it may matter more than anything else on this list. Let's go there now.

Can Your Thoughts Drive Chronic Inflammation?

“It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.” -Hans Selye

For something we do every single day of our lives (thinking), we are pretty bad at it. We repeat the same thoughts as yesterday, with the same thoughts as next week. Most people I speak with can’t name more than 10 different emotions they really feel on a daily basis, and use only a fraction of the English words available to us of over 600,000. Language and emotions are biochemical messengers, and have the power to create or destroy in your body.

Perceived stress matters more than actual stress. Studies show that the perception of stress- the story you tell yourself about what’s happening- predicts inflammatory biomarkers better than objective stress exposure. Two people facing the same job loss, the same divorce, the same diagnosis can have completely different inflammatory responses depending on how they frame it. The story you tell about your situation changes your inflammation response. This is where the words you tell yourself, thoughts you have, outlook on life- shape your metabolic health.

Purpose and meaning are anti-inflammatory. People with a strong sense of purpose show lower CRP, lower IL-6, lower TNF-α, and different NF-κB gene expression patterns compared to people without clear purpose- even controlling for health behaviors. This goes beyond stress reduction. Having meaning appears to actively program the immune system differently.

Long-term meditators have upregulated expression of genes involved in oxidative phosphorylation and mitochondrial biogenesis. Not just lower stress- but actual changes in mitochondrial pathways. The mechanism isn’t fully explained by stress reduction alone. Something deeper is happening. The contemplative state appears to directly improve the cellular power plant that produces energy and resolves inflammation.

The vagus nerve is anti-inflammatory. The vagus nerve directly monitors and controls inflammatory responses through the “cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway.” When the vagus detects rising cytokines, it signals the spleen to release acetylcholine, which binds to receptors on macrophages and dramatically reduces their production of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6- without affecting their ability to clear pathogens. This is a hardwired neural circuit for inflammation control. And its strength depends on your vagal tone- how responsive your nervous system is to safety, connection, and calm.

People in chronic stress have low vagal tone, which means the anti-inflammatory reflex runs weak and the immune system operates with less oversight- since the neural circuit designed to regulate it has been suppressed by chronic stress, and inflammation runs unchecked as a result.

Every negative emotional state you sustain- guilt, shame, resentment, fear, self-hatred- keeps the sympathetic nervous system engaged & suppresses vagal tone- weakening the only neural pathway that directly controls inflammatory cytokine production in real time.

To leave you with an analysis for today- in the 10 Commandments, “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain” has been interpreted as not using God’s name for ill purposes. Correct- but let’s expand this meaning. If we look at this through a metabolic lens, and that God is within you- the Body as the Temple- then it helps you understand inflammation.

Every word, feeling, sentence that is ill- such as anger, hatred, lust, guilt, shame- are biochemical messengers that activate inflammation. The cell enters into an arrhythmic, incoherent state, responding metabolically to your commands. This makes your life feel like a living hell; breaking the third commandment.

But when you speak words, think thoughts, and feel feelings that are divine in nature- joy, love, ecstasy, bliss, gratitude- the expression biochemically crushes inflammation. Your cells enter into a rhythmic state, like a symphony, building order upon order. The metabolic response is like beautiful music, and inflammation does not metabolically work in these states.

So if you want to lower inflammation with the most powerful free drug available- do not take the Lord’s name in vain. Speak well upon yourself and analyze the beliefs you hypnotize yourself with. The more you embrace elevated states- the more you reduce inflammation. Double that with purpose, assigning a deeper meaning to God, The Universe, Christ- whatever you want to name the very fabric of life- you build a temple worthy of housing the spirit and enhanced energy production.

Put simply, if you do everything right with nutrition, supplements and medication but you aren’t seeing results… “YOU” need to get out of the way and allow a greater mind to aid in your healing.

Now that the foundation is laid- let’s get into what you can tactically do immediately to crush inflammation.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

Bioenergetic Causes of Inflammation

These may seem like a lot, but that tells you how deep this goes. Since you better understand inflammation, you now know that we must break it somewhere, which is what the interventions do. Here are things that must change- and most of you will need to change more than one thing:

Energy systems. Healthy cells run on oxidative phosphorylation. Inflamed or damaged cells default to glycolysis. This is the Warburg shift that Otto Warburg first observed in cancer cells, but every chronically inflamed tissue exhibits this same pattern to some degree. Cancer is the extreme end of a spectrum that begins right here.

Stress and cortisol. There is nothing that stress does not affect. Your body doesn’t distinguish between a tiger and a 3 AM thought about your in-laws coming over. The cortisol response is identical, and the metabolic damage accumulates the same way.

Low thyroid. Low thyroid function means low metabolic rate, which means every cell in the body is shifted toward glycolysis with less energy available for inflammatory resolution. The gut can’t regenerate its lining fast enough, the liver can’t detoxify efficiently, and immune cells can’t activate.

Endotoxin. I covered this extensively in my gut health article (read it here).Whole-body inflammation can stem from a gut problem. The gut-liver axis is the starting point for chronic inflammatory load.

Excess nitric oxide. Most health content worships nitric oxide, but there are two forms of NO synthesis, with iNOS competing with oxygen at cytochrome c oxidase. Inflammation again.

Gluten. Do I think everyone should avoid gluten? Yes. Glutens actions simply means more NF-κB activation. Some people tolerate it better than others, but nobody’s gut benefits from it with today’s modified sources.

PUFAs. Linoleic acid gets stored in your cell membranes, and feeds directly into the pathway that produce inflammation. Tissue PUFA has a half-life of roughly 600 days, so full clearance takes 2-4 year- but every month of lower intake shifts the ratio. If you are losing body fat, it’s important to be mindful of PUFA oxidation on inflammation markers.

Low blood sugar. When liver glycogen depletes, the body compensates with counter-regulatory hormones, breaking down muscle, elevating stress hormones, increasing gut permeability, and suppressing thyroid function.

Low CO2. CO2 is the product of healthy oxidative metabolism, and it’s one of the most important indicators of health and low inflammation. When metabolism is suppressed and cells are glycolytic, CO2 drops and lactate rises.

Gut serotonin. The gut produces about 90% of the body’s serotonin, and peripheral serotonin is a stress mediator. Many symptoms attributed to “low serotonin” are actually caused by excess peripheral serotonin from an inflamed gut driving a chronic stress response.

Lactic acid. When mitochondria can’t run oxidative phosphorylation, cells default to glycolysis and produce lactate. Sugar doesn’t cause lactic acid buildup in a healthy cell- sugar is the preferred fuel for oxidative phosphorylation. Lactic acid accumulates when the mitochondria can’t use the sugar, because they’re damaged by all the causes listed above.

Leptin and fat tissue. Adipose tissue is an endocrine organ that stimulates estrogen and leptin- two inflammatory drivers. The inflammation-obesity cycle is one of the hardest to break because the fat itself becomes the inflammatory source.

Circadian disruption. Inflammation follows a circadian rhythm. When you disrupt that rhythm- screens at night, irregular sleep, shift work- inflammatory signals are de-repressed at the wrong times. Shift workers have dramatically higher rates of metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and cancer for this reason.

Excess estrogen. Women deal with inflammation significantly more than men, and estrogen is a primary reason.

Low NAD+. The ratio between NAD+ and NADH determines whether your immune system runs clean or like crap. When NAD+ is high, cells produce energy and resolve inflammation. When the ratio flips, the cell defaults to glycolysis.

Radiation and EMF. Every process in your body is electrical. We have surrounded ourselves with non-native electromagnetic frequencies that didn’t exist in the human environment a generation ago and act as if our biology doesn’t notice. Hint- it does.

Damaged mitochondria and failed resolution. Damaged mitochondria produce more ROS, which damages more mitochondria. Energy drops. The immune system can’t switch from M1 to M2 systems, because M2 macrophages require oxidative phosphorylation to function.

Now, it’s time. Let’s get into what to do.

Before the interventions, a clarification: this article addresses the metabolic roots of inflammation through a bioenergetic perspective. If you are on medication for an autoimmune or inflammatory condition, stay on it and work with your doctor. These tools work alongside medicine, not instead of it.

The 14 Interventions

1. Remove All Gut Irritants

“Before you heal someone, ask him if he’s willing to give up the things that make him sick.” - Hippocrates

A majority of inflammation is gut-related. As long as that barrier keeps leaking and endotoxin is elevated, nothing downstream fully resolves.

The ingredient lists that most people never read- carrageenans, xanthan gum, guar gum, cellulose gum, artificial sweeteners (sucralose, aspartame, acesulfame-K), “natural flavors” (that are anything but natural) crap fibers like inulin and chicory root that ferment violently in a compromised gut, cheap protein isolates padded with fillers, fortified synthetic vitamins, emulsifiers like polysorbate 80,, and pesticide residues like glyphosate. And don’t even get me started on your sugar-free alternatives. Every single one of these kills gut health.

The solution: Remove them all. If a label with more than three ingredients, put it back. If you can’t pronounce something on the label, your gut can’t process it either. Buy organic where you can- from your local farmer is best. Avoid insane amounts of supplements too- as they can be quite allergenic. Be smart, and know the source of what you are putting into your body. The key thing with all of this- just don’t poison yourself.

2. Eat the High Energy Diet

After you remove all the poison, flood yourself with a nutrient dense diet. Why? Nutrient deficiency amplifies inflammation at every level. Zinc, copper, manganese, and selenium are required cofactors for the antioxidant enzymes that neutralize ROS. B vitamins- especially thiamine- are essential cofactors for oxidative phosphorylation.

Without adequate raw materials, there are not enough builders to remodel the house. In order to achieve most things on this list, a nutrient dense diet is critical.

The solution: Center your diet around ruminant meat, organs, eggs, seafood, dairy, root vegetables, cooked greens, and ripe fruit. Liver 1-2x per week, Oysters for zinc and selenium, eggs, milk and an abundance of fruit for their nutrient load. Adequate carbohydrates (150g+ daily minimum) and enough protein from balanced sources- not just muscle meat. Enough fat for hormones and satiety. Eat enough. Seriously. Please stop starving yourself.

If you would like guidance on what to eat, download my FREE High Energy Diet Model. One page to bring with you to the grocery store for easy reference. You will love.

3. Lower TSH

TSH promotes inflammation directly by increasing IL-18, and elevated TSH reflects insufficient thyroid hormone production- which means every cell in the body is metabolically suppressed, producing less ATP, less CO2, more lactate, and running on glycolysis with diminished capacity for inflammatory resolution at every tissue.

Thyroid hormone (T3) increases mitochondrial biogenesis, upregulates cytochrome c oxidase expression, increases oxygen consumption, and drives CO2 production. When T3 is low, mitochondria run cold. The electron transport chain sort of sucks in its operation without enough T3. The M1-to-M2 macrophage switch can’t happen because M2 macrophages require oxidative phosphorylation. The gut can’t regenerate its lining fast enough (it turns over every 3-5 days- that’s extremely ATP-demanding). The liver can’t detoxify estrogen efficiently. Everything downstream of thyroid fails!

The solution: Get your lab work done. TSH above 2.5 suggests suboptimal function even if conventional ranges call it “normal.” Don’t trust that. Check body temperature and pulse rate upon waking- below 97.8°F and below 70 BPM consistently suggest metabolism needs help. Adequate carbohydrate intake, selenium, zinc, magnesium, calcium, vitamin A are critical. If labs confirm poor T3 production despite good nutrition, work with a practitioner who actually understands thyroid, and treats symptoms- not labs- if you need to use thyroid hormone replacement.

4. Load Up on Glycine

The modern diet is muscle meat-heavy and collagen-poor- steaks, chicken breast- all high in methionine and tryptophan relative to glycine. Excess methionine drives homocysteine (independently inflammatory) and creates an amino acid imbalance that favors inflammatory signaling. Your ancestors (not even 100 years ago) ate the whole animal, skin and joints and tendons and bones included. You eat the filet and throw the rest away haha.

Glycine is the main anti-inflammatory amino acid. It activates glycine-gated chloride channels on macrophages and neutrophils, directly inhibiting their activation. It suppresses TNF-α production in a dose-dependent manner. It’s the most abundant amino acid in collagen and a primary building block of the gut’s mucosal lining. It calms the nervous system through inhibitory receptor activity. It improves sleep by lowering core body temperature. At therapeutic doses (15-20g daily), it measurably reduces inflammatory markers.

The solution: Bone broth- as much as possible. Gelatin powder- 10-20g dissolved into warm oat bran, broth, or liquids. Collagenous meat cuts-oxtail, beef shank, short ribs braised until falling apart. This is completing the amino acid profile your body expects from whole-animal eating. It’s one of the cheapest, safest, and most underrated anti-inflammatory interventions available.

5. Reduce Excess Nitric Oxide, Raise CO2

There are two forms of nitric oxide synthesis. eNOS produces small, controlled amounts for healthy vascular function. iNOS produces massive amounts during inflammation- and that excess NO competes with oxygen at the final step of the electron transport chain, directly suppressing energy production. When NO wins, the cell shifts to glycolysis, producing lactate instead of CO2.

That’s not what we want. Lactate activates NF-κB and suppresses immune function. CO2 is the main reflection of a healthy metabolism. One lady I had with myriad autoimmune conditions & inflammatory markers had a common theme: low CO2. Ultimately, you want more CO2 and less lactate and NO.

The solution: Raw carrot salad and bamboo shoots reduce NO synthesis in the gut. Cascara has a similar effect. Just poop well. Increase CO2 with adequate carbs, coffee, sugar, thiamine or methylene blue. Do exercise that is nasal breathing dominant. CO2 baths are therapeutic (add 1 cup baking soda into bath) Red light/sunlight is KEY as red light breaks the binding of NO to cytochrome c oxidase. Reducing the upstream inflammatory triggers (gut endotoxin, PUFA oxidation, cortisol) also reduces iNOS activation at the source. Remove lactic acid sources, like yogurt, kombucha, sauerkraut, etc if you are metabolically compromised.

“I think cascara’s most important effect is the reduction of the pro-inflammatory nitric oxide, which poisons mitochondrial energy production. Raw carrot or bamboo shoots can sometimes have a similar effect by reducing NO synthesis.” -Ray Peat

6. Stay Warm

Think again before your next cold plunge. Cold stress raises cortisol and adrenaline. It increases the metabolic cost of thermoregulation- energy that could have gone toward repair and resolution gets diverted to heat production. For someone already inflamed and metabolically suppressed, chronic cold exposure adds stress to a system that doesn’t need it.

Warmth signals metabolic abundance. When body temperature is adequate (above 98.6°F), it reflects sufficient thyroid function and mitochondrial activity. CO2 production is higher. Oxygen delivery improves. Cellular reactions run faster. The immune system operates more efficiently at normal body temperature- this is actually why the body produces fever during acute infection. It’s using heat to accelerate immune function. Chronic low body temperature does the opposite- it slows everything down.

The solution: Stay warm. Wear enough clothing. Drink warm liquids. Eat warm food. Take warm baths. Get sunlight. Red and near-infrared light on the skin provides gentle warmth while directly stimulating cytochrome c oxidase. Stop the cold plunges if your morning temperature is below 97.8°F- you’re adding stress to a body that needs metabolic support, not metabolic challenge! Cold exposure has context-dependent benefits for metabolically healthy people. But for the chronically inflamed and hypothyroid, warmth is the intervention.

Quick Pause- High Energy Coaching

Everything here works. But if inflammation has been running the show for months or years, a Substack article gives you the map. Coaching gives you tactical personalization.

16 weeks. One-on-one with me. Lose fat. Feel better. Build muscle. Optimize your metabolism and hormones without fad diets, fasting or pills.

Book your discovery call here.

Now. Back to the interventions.

7. Maintain Calcium:Phosphorus Ratio

PTH is independently pro-inflammatory- it increases cellular stress, promotes calcium entry into soft tissue (calcification), and opposes thyroid function. The modern diet is extremely phosphorus-heavy (meat, grains, soda) and calcium-poor (low dairy intake, low vegetable intake). And if you are nervous all the time… that’s one of many signs to balance this.

Elevated PTH promotes inflammation through direct effects on immune cells and indirect effects through calcium dysregulation. Soft tissue calcification- calcium depositing where it doesn’t belong- is a hallmark of chronic inflammation and aging. Adequate calcium intake suppresses PTH, which is itself anti-inflammatory.

The solution: Target 1:1 ratio of calcium to phosphate. This can be done by having more dairy compared to meats and grains. Parmesan Reggiano cheese (330mg per oz- the highest food source). Cooked collard greens and bok choy (lower oxalates than spinach, so better calcium absorption) are also good. Calcium-rich mineral water (Gerolsteiner has 348mg per liter). Eggshell calcium is cheap and effective if obtaining from the diet is difficult. Balance every high-phosphorus meal (meat, eggs) with a calcium source.

8. Lower Excess Estrogen

Women deal with inflammation significantly more than men, and estrogen is a major reason why. Excess estrogen increases histamine release from mast cells, promotes edema and vascular permeability, enhances the sensitivity of TLR4 , and drives B-cell antibody production- which in autoimmune conditions means more autoantibodies attacking your own tissue. Estrogen also raises cortisol binding globulin, increasing the conditions for cortisol-driven inflammation, while opposing progesterone, which is genuinely anti-inflammatory.

The liver detoxifies estrogen. An inflamed liver does this poorly, so estrogen accumulates, increases gut permeability, feeds more endotoxin into the cycle, and further burdens the liver. More gut dysfunction means more estrogen. More estrogen means more inflammation. More inflammation means more gut dysfunction. A simple way to test your liver function is with caffeine- if a cup of coffee really messes you up, it’s a pattern of liver function being inadequate to process it.

The solution: Peat’s carrot salad. White button mushrooms. Progesterone. Aspirin. Sugar. Liver. Eggs. Reduce excessive exercise. Do creative activities. Literally everything in this article addresses estrogen. If you’re a woman dealing with stubborn inflammation, PMS, heavy periods, water retention, or mood swings that cycle with your period- estrogen dominance is likely a major driver and this intervention deserves your full attention.

9. Remove PUFA, Embrace Saturated and Monounsaturated Fat

PUFAs stored in your cell membranes are the raw material for the entire prostaglandin and leukotriene cascade. More PUFA in tissue means more arachidonic acid available for COX and LOX enzymes, which translates directly to more PGE2, more leukotrienes, more pain, more swelling, and more tissue destruction.

Linoleic acid (from seed oils) converts to arachidonic acid in tissues. Meanwhile, PUFAs in the membrane oxidize from ROS exposure, generating lipid peroxides (4-HNE, MDA) that directly damage mitochondria- creating more ROS, creating more damage. A chain reaction in the membrane that saturated fats are structurally resistant to.

The solution: Eliminate seed oils. I know haha, but can’t be said enough. Cook with butter, coconut oil, olive oil and tallow. Choose ruminant animal fats (beef, lamb) over chicken and pork fat- ruminant animals biohydrogenate PUFAs in their gut, so their fat is predominantly saturated and monounsaturated.

(Pro tip!! Have a larger proportion of your fat near bedtime. It stabilizes blood sugar overnight and prevents the cortisol spike that wakes you at 4 AM, lowering inflammation. Real ice cream or eggs is good. And if inflammation is really bad, take 1-2 phenolic shots of high-quality extra virgin olive oil. The oleocanthal in EVOO inhibits COX-1 and COX-2 through the same mechanism as ibuprofen. The olive oil you use should be strong and burn in your throat a bit. Look for harvest dates, dark glass bottles, and polyphenol counts above 500 mg/kg. Just ensure rest of fat intake is primarily saturated fats if slamming olive oil like this.)

10. Significantly Increase Fruit and Vegetables

Most people eat 1-2 servings of fruit and vegetables a day if they’re lucky. The standard American plate is protein + starch + maybe a thumb size of broccoli! Meanwhile, the fiber, potassium, vitamin C, enzymes, and polyphenols that the anti-inflammatory and resolution systems depend on are chronically undersupplied.

Fiber from fruit and vegetables feeds butyrate-producing bacteria. Potassium opposes cortisol at the cellular level and improves insulin sensitivity. Vitamin C is required for collagen synthesis. Anthocyanin in berries inhibit NF-κB. Bromelain in pineapple and papain in papaya are proteolytic enzymes that specifically reduce TNF-α and IL-1β.

The solution: 6-10 servings daily across meals. Not as side dishes. As the volume of the diet! Ripe tropical fruits (pineapple, papaya, mango), citrus, berries. Cooked root vegetables (sweet potato, beets, carrots, parsnips). Cooked greens (bok choy, collard greens, broccoli- cook them to reduce oxalates and goitrogens). Well-cooked mushrooms. Purple foods in particular contain a large amount of anthocyanin that seriously signal metabolic abundance in your body.

11. Raise NAD+

NAD is beyond critical to calm inflammation. Remember when we dove into the energy connection? This is how it’s done tactically. The ratio between its oxidized form (NAD+) and its reduced form (NADH) determines whether your immune system runs clean or stays inflamed. When NAD+ is high, cells produce energy efficiently and resolve inflammation. When the ratio flips, the electron transport chain backs up and the cell defaults to glycolysis. Your immune response is expressed through this ratio. When you see a person’s OAT test who has inflammation, you will see NADH dominant.

Every time your mitochondria are suppressed, NAD+ drops. Every time inflammation activates, NAD+ gets consumed. The cycle depletes the very molecule the cell needs to recover, which is why chronically inflamed people can’t seem to get out of the hole.

The solution: Niacinamide (vitamin B3) is the most direct and cheapest way to raise NAD+. 50-500mg two to three times daily with meals. Lower stress, because cortisol burns through NAD+ rapidly. And avoid excessive egg whites, massive dairy intake and high-tryptophan foods when you’re in a stressed or inflamed state- tryptophan metabolism through the kynurenine pathway consumes NAD+ and produces inflammatory compounds and driving serotonin. This doesn’t mean avoid eggs. It means eat the whole egg and don’t pound egg white omelets in an effort to lose fat while your body is begging you to stop.

12. Meditate. Pray. Find Purpose.

"The most stressful condition a person can face is not having something to believe in." -Hans Selye

A calm nervous system with moderate food choices will outperform a stressed nervous system with a perfect diet. Every time. The vagal anti-inflammatory reflex gets stronger with practice and weaker with chronic stress. Most people have never deliberately trained this circuit.

Deep slow breathing with extended exhale activates the vagus nerve and strengthens the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway. Meditation increases vagal tone measurably. Prayer and contemplative practice shifts your nervous system state. Purpose and meaning reprogram your inflammation response. Long-term meditators show upregulated genes for oxidative phosphorylation and mitochondrial biogenesis.

The solution: Find God. Whatever way that resonates with you. Then pray, meditate, read, do yoga, embrace gratitude. Just say thank you. The nervous system responds to what you practice. Practice calm. Practice chill. Practice coherence.

13. Smart Supplementation

Even with a perfect diet, certain anti-inflammatory tools are difficult to get at therapeutic doses from food alone- especially during the years-long PUFA clearance period when your membranes are still loaded with oxidizable substrate.

Each supplement targets a specific node in the inflammatory loop:

Aspirin- inhibits COX-1 and COX-2, reducing PGE2 production from arachidonic acid. Also increases unbound T3 and T4 by displacing them from binding proteins- a dual anti-inflammatory and pro-thyroid effect.

Vitamin E- the body’s primary fat-soluble chain-breaking antioxidant. Sits in cell membranes and intercepts lipid peroxidation chain reactions. Essential during the PUFA clearance years.

Ginger- inhibits both COX and LOX pathways. Has direct anti-TNF-α activity. Prokinetic- stimulates the migrating motor complex for better gut motility. One of the most versatile anti-inflammatory foods available. Drink ginger tea!

Vitamin D3- Deficiency is epidemic and directly correlated with inflammatory disease burden. Get sunlight as your source, or supplement if you are in a country that doesn’t see much sun.

Vitamin K2- Works synergistically with vitamin D3 and has other therapeutic effects on metabolism.

Thiamine (B1)- If you consume sugar (and you should), you need thiamine to metabolize it. TTFD form is best absorbed.

Niacinamide (B3)- as discussed above. Direct precursor to NAD to help restore energy production.

The solution: This is a targeted stack, not a shopping spree haha. Aspirin, vitamin E, ginger, D3/K2, and thiamine. Pick one at a time to know how it affects you. Each one addresses a specific, identified mechanism. Add or subtract based on your situation and labs. And always- food first, supplements second.

“Safe anti-inflammatory things would be aspirin, calcium carbonate, coffee especially when taken with meat or eggs, salt or baking soda, and sugar.” -Ray Peat

14. Patience. Be Kind to Yourself.

This is not a 30-day protocol. It’s a system that takes time to apply; patience to see. You will mess up, you will get confused, and you will sometimes get worse before you get better. And that’s okay. I’m proud of you for taking action in your own hands.

The people who get the best results are the ones who stop chasing quick fixes and commit to the long game. Your body knows how to heal. It’s been doing it since before you were born. Chronic inflammation is what happens when the healing system doesn’t have the resources it needs.

Give it the fuel, the rest, the safety, and the time.

Consistency over perfection, progress over punishment, energy over restriction. That’s the High Energy approach, and it works.

How to Put This Into Practice Immediately

I just gave you a lot of information and I know the tendency- you read something like this, feel motivated for about twenty minutes, and then the overwhelm sets in and nothing changes. So let me make this stupid simple!

These are the three things to experiment with THIS WEEK.

1. Quit the junk. Go through your pantry and your fridge and purge it! It’s not worth it to have that crap in there. The protein bars, the diet sodas, the salad dressings, the cooking spray, the “healthy” snacks that are actually engineered inflammation in a wrapper haha. All of it goes. For one week, eat single-ingredient whole foods. Follow The High Energy Diet Model as your guide.

2. Eat breakfast within 90 minutes of waking. Protein, carbohydrate, and fat- together. Should be big. Think eggs, cheese, honey, oat bran, berries, OJ, fruits, mushrooms, cottage cheese, etc. Whatever you’ll actually eat consistently, every single morning. This shifts your entire hormonal cascade out of stress mode before the day has even started. Most of you are running on caffeine and cortisol until noon and wondering why you feel terrible by 2 PM. Eat the breakfast.

3. Eat a ridiculous amount of fruit and vegetables. I’m serious. Not a side salad and a banana. I mean 6-10 servings a day across every meal. Berries, papaya, carrots, sweet potatoes, asparagus, pineapple, oranges, apples… you get the idea. Most people are eating 1-2 servings a day and wondering why nothing changes. Eat the plants. Eat the fruit. Eat way more than you think you need. You need sugar. Your gut bacteria, your liver, your immune system, and your energy levels will respond quickly.

That’s it. Try these this week and you WILL notice a difference! Let me know how it feels. Once you get this foundation set, come back and we’ll build from there.

The High Energy Approach

These 14 interventions work. But if you’ve been inflamed for months or years, your entire metabolism has adapted around the dysfunction… and generic protocols can’t untangle that.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Do your own research, work with someone qualified, and don’t outsource your health decisions to anyone — including me.

And you will most likely consume it every day of your life until you leave this planet.

Think about that for a second. There is almost nothing else you do with that kind of consistency. Not exercise, prayer or calling your parents. But caffeine never misses a day! It is the single most consistent behavior in your entire life and you probably never chose it. It just… happened. Someone handed you a cup at some point- maybe in high school, maybe at your first job, maybe watching your parents do it every morning- and from that point on you never stopped. Nobody sat you down and said “hey there, you’re about to start a lifelong relationship with a psychoactive drug!” It just became part of the routine, same as brushing your teeth, except you’d skip brushing your teeth before you’d skip the coffee and you know that’s true haha.

Now most people have never once stopped to ask why. Why can’t you get through a morning without it? Why does the thought of quitting feel more threatening than it should? Why is the first thing you do every single day- before you feed yourself, before you work, before you say good morning to the people you live with- consume a substance that alters your brain chemistry within 20 minutes?

I didn’t ask either. For years I just drank it and assumed that’s what adults do.

At my worst I was drinking 10 cups a day. I had a metabolism that was low and a business I was building, and coffee was the only thing standing between me and full burnout.

In college, I was slamming Red Bulls before every practice, every class, and every party. Looking back now with what I now understand about the nervous system, I think a lot of the anxiety I carried for years- stuff I would have called PTSD- was partly created by flooding my system with adrenaline right before emotionally charged situations. You take a nervous system that’s already heightened, pour a Red Bull on it, walk into something intense, and the imprint doesn’t go away when the night ends, rather it becomes deeply registered in your nervous system. And then you spend years trying to heal something that was partly chemical the whole time.

The first time I actually quit caffeine in my early twenties, I had no idea what was happening to me. The anxiety, the fatigue, the feeling of my life falling apart- I even called BetterHelp and enrolled in therapy because I genuinely thought I was having a mental breakdown! Turns out I was just withdrawing from a stimulant I’d been dependent on since high school and nobody had ever told me that was even a possibility.

That experience of ten cups a day and accidental therapy enrollment taught me something I now see confirmed with every client I work with: how caffeine affects you depends entirely on your metabolic state. A healthy metabolism and caffeine is a powerful tool. But in a broken metabolism, caffeine becomes destructive to your body and blinds you from seeing the damage.

This article is everything about caffeine I wish someone had told me before I spent a decade figuring it out the hard way. Let’s dive in.

What Caffeine Actually Does

Quick background of the basics here.

Caffeine is a plant defense chemical. The coffee plant produces it to overstimulate the nervous systems of insects so they stop eating the bean. It paralyzes them, kills their appetite, and at high enough doses, kills them outright. In humans the effect is similar in kind but not in degree- we’re a lot bigger than a caterpillar, so instead of paralysis we get alertness.

Now the primary thing about coffee and the “energy” it gives you is through the adenosine system. Your brain produces adenosine throughout the day as you burn energy. The more it builds up, the more pressure you feel to sleep. That’s a natural fatigue signal- your body saying “hey man, you’ve been running hard, time to rest.”

But caffeine blocks those receptors as the core mechanism It doesn’t give you energy, rather it just stops your brain from recognizing that you’re tired. The fatigue is still happening but you can’t sense it. This is important to understand because most people genuinely believe caffeine gives them energy. It doesn’t. Your energy drinks are not “energy” drinks. They’re “I’m not tired anymore” drinks.

Beyond the adenosine blockade, caffeine inhibits an enzyme called phosphodiesterase, and when that enzyme is inhibited, cyclic AMP stays elevated and your cells maintain heightened energy signaling for longer. This is how caffeine raises metabolic rate by 3-11% depending on the person. So it does genuinely increase metabolic activity- but by blocking the off-switch, not by building more metabolic capacity.

Caffeine also acts on your dopamine system. It increases dopamine signaling in the brain- which is why coffee makes you feel motivated, focused, and like things matter more than they did ten minutes ago. But, in excess, it starts expecting that level of stimulation as normal, then alters your reward system. So the things that used to feel satisfying without caffeine, like a good conversation, a walk, or a meal- start feeling flat. Then you need the coffee just to feel interested in your own life! What a substance haha.

And remember that caffeine overstimulates insect nervous systems? It does the same thing to yours, just at a lower intensity. Caffeine triggers adrenaline and noradrenaline, and you enter a mild fight-or-flight state. Which is why pre workouts are so effective. It also raises cortisol- which, in a healthy person with a normal rhythm, rides the natural morning wave and sharpens you up. In someone already chronically stressed? It piles more on top of more. Not a good idea.

Now, this is not a hit piece on caffeine. Some of these mechanisms are genuinely metabolically enhancing- more on that in a bit. But what I’ve found, both personally and with every client I’ve worked with, is that whether caffeine feels like clear energy or anxiety in a cup depends entirely on your metabolic state.

How Caffeine Changes Who You Are (Consciousness Shifts)

For something that 9 out of 10 of you consume, there is a vast disconnect in awareness on how it affects your state of being.

When your metabolism is in a good place, with high thyroid output, low stress and plenty of food- caffeine gives you a nice boost in brain energy. You feel warmer, words come easier and work feels more engaging. There’s an ease to it that brings you into the high energy state, a state of relaxed alertness. This happens because caffeine, under the right metabolic conditions, raises brain concentrations of pregnenolone and progesterone- neurosteroids that deal in calm, confidence, and cognitive clarity. Research has shown caffeine increases brain pregnenolone by 72-188% and progesterone by 90-388%, depending on dose. These are youth-associated hormones, and I think part of the “addiction” of caffeine is that we intuitively know we need these neurosteroids elevated. When they’re elevated, you feel like a better version of yourself, capable of dealing with life, as energy is available to create.

But when your metabolism is low- hypothyroid, under-eating, poor sleep, chronically stressed- you drink the same cup and you don’t get the neurosteroid boost. Your adrenals and gonads are too depleted to respond. The research showed this directly: remove adrenal and gonadal function, and the neurosteroid increase disappears completely. So instead of pregnenolone and progesterone, you get raw adrenaline and cortisol without any hormonal buffer. That’s when coffee makes you a worse version of yourself, that is anxious, irritable and scattered. You need a second cup just to feel normal and your body craves a third in the afternoon. If you are in anyway chronically stressed, you know what i’m talking about here.

Now, let me give you this to toss in you mind. Caffeine, through its dopamine and catecholamine effects, makes you willing to do work you do not want to do. It creates an artificial drive that overrides your body’s actual signals- signals that might be telling you to rest, to eat, to change something fundamental about how you’re living. I’ve had clients quit caffeine and come back to me saying they suddenly don’t want to do their jobs anymore. Not because they got lazy, but because the caffeine was the chemical bridge between them and work that doesn’t fulfill them. (btw, they created better work for themselves.)

This makes you think about caffeine’s impacts in our current work society… many people are unfulfilled and unhappy, but that coffee machine in the break room keeps you trapped in a day to day of mediocrity.

More on the metabolic constructs of society another time. Let me know if you want an article about that. But for now, I do want to highlight the benefits of caffeine use.

The Real Benefits (When Your Metabolism Can Handle It)

Look, I know this feels like bashing on caffeine- but it’s not. There are fantastic benefits- but almost all of them require a metabolism that can actually use it, or it can be used to make up for a lack thereof of metabolic capacity.

The neurosteroid boost is real and it’s significant. In a healthy person, with sugar, caffeine raises pregnenolone and progesterone- hormones that buffer cortisol, support GABA, and create that grounded, capable feeling. This is caffeine actively raising the hormonal environment associated with youth and resilience. Some people genuinely feel better, calmer, and more present after coffee.

Caffeine lowers nitric oxide. Excess NO is a marker of low thyroid function and metabolic stress. For someone with hypothyroid tendencies, this is one of the few food-derived interventions that actually moves the needle. I’d imagine that the headaches of quitting caffeine is this in action.

Caffeine stimulates dopamine activity. Consumed correctly, caffeine will increase markers of motivation and enrich your experience by activating dopamine and antagonizing serotonin. In this state, you feel empowered.

It’s metabolically protective. Caffeine helps to support the metabolic rate through it’s actions with thyroid hormone and progesterone. Ray noticed that caffeine parallels them, and strong coffee is a cornerstone of a bioenergetic approach to nutrition.

“Caffeine has remarkable parallels to thyroid and progesterone, and the use of coffee or tea can help to maintain their production, or compensate for their deficiency.” -Ray Peat

It supports digestion and is liver protective. Coffee increases gastric motility and bile flow. This is that morning bowel movement after your first cup- you know what I mean.

It blocks iron absorption. Excess iron can lead to negative metabolic consequences- and coffee blocks it when eating foods containing iron. Personally, this is why I always have coffee when I am eating significant amounts of liver or organs.

It makes boring work tolerable. I know how that sounds but hear me out. Through the neurosteroid boost, caffeine can make a mundane Tuesday feel a little more engaging. Sometimes the work has to get done and caffeine helps you get through it without hating your life. The problem isn’t using it for this. The problem is when every Tuesday requires more and more caffeine. That’s the line between a tool and a crutch, and most people crossed it for years.

It has athletic benefits. Through the priming of the nervous system, caffeine will help you lift heavier weights and push through perceived fatigue. It is the most efficacious, legal, ergogenic aid that you can use. This is why every pre-workout contains caffeine- because it works. I’ve found keeping caffeine strategically around days I need a boost, or peak performance days gives me an edge, rather than daily use.

Caffeine can also facilitate flow states. When the body has enough reserves to handle the stimulation without tipping into anxiety, the combination of dopamine support and heightened focus creates conditions for deep, absorbed work. And the paradox- flow states crush cortisol, bringing it to near zero. So caffeine can lower stress by helping you lock into something so meaningful that the stress response shuts off entirely. But you need the metabolic margin to get there. That’s a big “if” for most people.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

The Negatives Worth Knowing

In a good metabolism the spike of cortisol is brief and productive. In someone already running on empty, it compounds daily- you crash, pour another cup, crash harder, and your baseline cortisol creeps up week after week while you blame everything except the mug. Eventually you are burned out completely, and ask me how I know.

Excessive caffeine can reduce thyroid hormone. When cortisol stays elevated, your body converts thyroid hormone into its inactive form- reverse T3- which slows your metabolism down as a protective measure. I've seen this many times in people who are under-eating and slamming multiple cups a day.

Magnesium gets depleted. We are already low on magnesium as a society. Good coffee is a source of magnesium, but can also deplete it (another reason why I prefer coffee to pure caffeine). Caffeine reduces renal reabsorption and can increase urinary magnesium losses by up to 45% in the hours after consumption. Magnesium runs many processes in your body including GABA production, muscle relaxation, and the T4-to-T3 thyroid conversion that caffeine is supporting. So caffeine can literally undermine the very thyroid conversion it gets credit for boosting.

Mycotoxins. Over half of coffee samples tested worldwide contain detectable levels of ochratoxin A- immunosuppressive, nephrotoxic, classified as a possible carcinogen. Mass-produced grocery store coffee carries the highest risk. Three cups a day of whatever was cheapest on the shelf and you’re adding a low-grade toxic burden on top of everything else. Most people don’t even know this is a thing.

Your CYP1A2 gene determines how fast your liver clears caffeine. Slow metabolizers carry the effects for hours longer than fast metabolizers. That 2pm cup is still in your system at midnight whether you feel it or not. This is why your friend drinks espresso after dinner and sleeps fine while one morning cup keeps you up.

Caffeine can flatten your capacity for pleasure. Artificially spiking dopamine raises the baseline your brain expects for satisfaction. A walk. A meal. A conversation. They start feeling flat because your reward system is calibrated to a chemically elevated baseline. People who reduce report that food tastes better, music sounds richer, simple moments carry more weight. The dopamine system recalibrates when you stop hammering it.

It can hurt muscle growth. Cortisol is catabolic- it breaks tissue down. Cortisol has a relationship with DHEA, another one of your youth hormones. If this ratio is off, muscle definition is flat. (oddly enough in your arms- but that is just my observation.) If you’re training hard then keeping cortisol elevated with caffeine the rest of the day, you’re partially undoing what you built in the gym. Fitness content ignores this because selling pre-workout and energy drinks pays the bills.

And the one I think matters most: caffeine prevents you from hearing what your body is actually saying. Fatigue, hunger, and a desire to slow down are signals from your cells. When you override that desire with caffeine, you push through things that your cells do not want to do, and can have lasting consequences to your nervous system. Everyone who is preaching “nervous system resets” while still pounding caffeine have a blatant lack of awareness. Over months and years this creates a deep disconnection between you and your own biology, and you stop knowing what you feel or even how to chill because you’ve been chemically overriding the feedback for so long.

How to Use Caffeine Correctly

If you’re going to drink caffeine- and most of us are- here’s how to drink it appropriately.

1. Never drink it fasted.

Caffeine on an empty stomach speeds up the metabolic rate, and without giving your body glucose to fuel it, cortisol and adrenaline manufacture that fuel from your own tissue. You are literally breaking yourself down for energy with fasted coffee. Always pair it with food, fat, or sugar. When I see Europeans drink coffee, they always do so with milk/sugar, a pastry, croissant, or OJ. They figured out the format centuries ago, and they stay lean since they don’t have a 16oz gulp of cortisol affecting their waistline haha. Never black on an empty stomach. If you take one thing from this article, take this.

2. One to two is the sweet spot.

I never see people doing absolutely excellent on more than two cups a day. If espresso, i’d keep around 3. Beyond that you’re not getting more benefits in my experience. You’re digging a deeper hole in your minerals and cortisol rhythm.

3. Cycle off every few months for one to two weeks.

Reset your tolerance. Keep caffeine as a tool that works, not an addiction. If the thought of going two weeks without coffee terrifies you... it’s time for your break.

4. Avoid energy drinks, especially sugar-free.

I’ll say it plainly: sugar-free energy drinks are engineered to get you addicted to the hormones of stress. The entire business model is your physiological dependency. This is one of the most harmful things, consuming excessive caffeine without nutrients. If you’re drinking these daily, caffeine is using you, and you are being abused by these so called “health” companies.

5. Drink organic from reputable sources.

You’re not being snobby. You’re reducing mycotoxin exposure lol. Be fancy and drink the good stuff only. And clean your coffee equipment please. Mold builds up in machines and pots faster than you’d think.

6. Stay clear of the 800-calorie Starbucks drinks.

That’s not coffee my friend. That’s dessert with a stimulant in it, designed to turn you into a daily repeat customer profitable for the man. These hijack your reward system, and you will become a consumer of their products. That’s the point. They don’t have your health in mind.

7. Drink less on days you’re going to be around people.

Caffeine is a stimulant. For a lot of people that means less patience, more tension, quicker to snap. If you’ve got something that matters- meeting, date, time with your kids- back off the dose a bit. You’ll be more relaxed.

8. Make sure your salt intake is enough.

Sodium suppresses adrenaline. Caffeine is diuretic. If you’re drinking coffee on a low-salt diet, the adrenaline response hits you like a truck. Having salt around your caffeine doses does more to smooth out caffeine and the RAAS system than any supplement stack. Oh, and if you’re peeing nonstop… that is a signal to back off and to increase sodium a bit.

How to Quit If You Want To

The most important thing you can do before quitting is raise your metabolic rate first. I was only able to quit my 10 cups a day habit after taking thyroid optimization seriously. Once I started, my cravings for caffeine disappeared quickly, and it just didn’t have the same drug like urge for me. It naturally faded away without even trying. Get thyroid function up through proper nutrition -adequate carbs, quality protein, liver, eggs, oysters on occasion, and support T3 function. Improve neurosteroid production through cholesterol intake, vitamin A, lowering estrogen load. When your body is producing energy on its own, caffeine withdrawal is a rough week. When your metabolism is already in the gutter, quitting feels like your brain is shutting down- because you’re revealing your true metabolic state without stress hormones holding you up.

Work on increasing CO2 tolerance and keeping nitric oxide in check. Better breathing, adequate nutrition, lower inflammation. Caffeine was handling some of this for you pharmacologically. My best words are breathe through your nose all the time and do exercise that is nasal breathing, and consume enough carbohydrates for you.

As for method- tapering is delaying the inevitable. I’ve watched people “taper” for three weeks, cutting half a cup here and there, never fully committing because there’s always just enough caffeine in the system to keep the dependency alive. Rip the bandaid off! You will have a miserable five to seven days. Headaches. Fatigue. Fog. Irritability. If you want to quit for a period to see how you feel, go ahead and make the decision to do it.

If you want coffee alternatives, i’d recommend making a warm beverage or any tea, like bone broth or ginger tea. Yerba Mate or green tea is an easier punch than coffee or energy drinks. Strong ginger tea is incredible, and what I would advise. You’ll feel metabolically supercharged with it. Get some.

What People Notice When They Reduce Caffeine

This comes from clients, from my own experience, and from people in the community who’ve actually done it. Not everyone gets all of these, but it can be surprising. Often, just reducing to 1-2 cups a day gets you here.

The Bigger Picture

This article wasn’t written to make you quit coffee at all. It was written to help you understand what it’s actually doing as the thing you will consume for what will likely be the rest of your life.

One of the first things I do with clients who are struggling- high cortisol, broken sleep, anxious, dysregulated nervous system, hormones in the gutter- is pull caffeine for a stretch. Not forever, but just long enough to see what they’ve been masking. And what shows up, almost every time, is a different version of them. Usually quieter. Less driven by urgency and more present. Not carrying around that low-grade anxiety they thought was just their personality.

Does it stay gone forever? Usually not. Caffeine has become essential to how our society operates, and there’s no changing that. The pace of modern life was built around it. But there’s a real difference between drinking 1-2 cups of coffee because you enjoy it and drinking four cups because you’ll fall apart without them. There’s a difference between choosing caffeine and being chosen by it.

Fix your metabolism and caffeine becomes a tool. Leave it broken and caffeine runs you.

The High Energy Approach

If you want to restore your energy without relying on caffeine all of the time…

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Do your own research, work with someone qualified, and don’t outsource your health decisions to anyone — including me.

Their diabetes reversed.

Dr. Walter Kempner’s Rice Diet became one of the most controversial and successful programs in history. Patients arrived with kidney failure, hypertension & blindness from diabetic retinopathy- conditions that were death sentences at the time- and he fed them roughly 90% carbohydrates to heal- almost zero fat and almost zero protein.

Among his diabetic patients- over 100 treated for at least three months- fasting blood sugars dropped, even as they reduced or completely eliminated their insulin medication. He had assumed the carbohydrates would make the diabetes worse, but the opposite happened. It made them lean.

This is heresy today.

But the medical establishment couldn’t accept it and he was accused of fraud by those who had agendas to fill. However, the data was meticulous and the results were undeniable.

While i’m not going to only recommend Kempner’s Rice Diet today, I do want to explain why it works and how it fits into the bioenergetic model of obesity.

Today, mass marketing has demonized sugar. We’ve cut carbs to near zero and we’ve turned fruit juice into the devil. We track every insulin “spike” like it’s a cardiac event. We have more low-carb products, more sugar-free options, more glucose monitors overriding your innate intuition on what good eating is for you.

And yet, with all of our advances in “healthcare” we have the highest rates of insulin resistance ever recorded.

More than 1 in 3 Americans have pre-diabetes. Over 11% have type 2 diabetes. And the broader picture of insulin resistance- which includes everyone whose cells aren’t responding to insulin optimally, diagnosed or not- likely captures more than half of the adult population. The numbers climb every single year, while we are eating less sugar, moving more and medicating more.

How is that possible? How can we simultaneously fear sugar more than ever and have more blood sugar problems than ever?

Because we’ve been solving for the wrong problem.

We should go a level deeper and ask the question “why can’t I cleanly burn carbs for energy?” instead.

That’s the lens I want you to see through, and that’s what this article is about.

And i’m not speaking out of theory here- i’ve lived everything i’m talking about here.

At my heaviest I was 322 pounds, brain fog after every meal and constant hunger no matter how much I ate. My belly was so big, I couldn’t see my (you know what) down below. Every marker on the list I’m about to give you- I had most of them. I didn’t know it was insulin resistance at the time, I just thought I was destined to be fat and “big boned”.

But when I started with a proper diet and improving cellular energy production- thyroid, inflammation, nutrient density, the quality of the fats I was eating- 120 pounds came off. I didn’t do that through fasting, cutting carbs or keto- but through basic physiology. I eventually got my body to be able to oxidize glucose again. The insulin resistance resolved as a downstream consequence of fixing the metabolism upstream.

That experience is what this entire article is built on. Not theory or some ideology, but what actually worked for me, and now for the clients I coach through the same process.

Let’s dive in.

“Inflammation, interfering with cellular energy production, is probably the essential feature of the things called diabetes.” -Ray Peat

What Insulin Resistance Actually Is

People hear insulin resistance and blame it all on sugar. That misses a ton of nuance, and will keep you stuck for years by continually going on these “sugar detoxes” that are ever so popular.

So with that, here’s what’s actually happening.

Insulin is a storage and signaling hormone. Its primary job is to escort glucose from your blood into your cells- muscle cells, liver cells, fat cells- where that glucose gets burned for energy inside the mitochondria. Insulin opens the door and glucose enters. The cell makes ATP. You have energy.

Insulin resistance means the cell stops responding to that signal.

But why does it stop responding? Why do most not critically think beyond this mechanism? Most people stop at “oh you ate too much sugar” causing you to secrete too much insulin, receptors downregulate.

In bioenergetics, this is seen differently. The cell isn’t refusing glucose because it’s been worn out. The cell is refusing glucose because it can’t process the fuel it already has. When mitochondria are compromised- inflamed, poisoned by PUFAs, starved of critical cofactors, overwhelmed by oxidative stress- the cell sits in a pool of unburned fuel, producing lactic acid instead of CO2, running on emergency metabolism. When a cell is already choking on half-processed energy, the last thing it wants is more glucose forced in.

Sugar doesn’t damage the cell. Sugar is the preferred fuel. Your cells want glucose. They’re designed to run on it. It’s so critical that your body makes it’s own. The problem is everything preventing them from burning it cleanly- PUFA accumulation, low thyroid function, endotoxin, chronic inflammation, oxidative stress and micronutrient deficiencies.

This is why it makes sense Kempner’s patients healed eating 90% carbohydrates. He didn’t give them more fuel than they needed, and he removed the things blocking glucose oxidation- inflammatory fats, excess protein creating metabolic waste, gut irritants driving endotoxin, lowered excess FFAs & balanced stress physiology. The cells could finally oxidize glucose again, and the insulin resistance disappeared.

“Free fatty acids can block the Krebs cycle, with relative insulin action resistance resulting.” -Spellacy and Carlson, 1966

Why It’s Not Sugar (The Randle Cycle Explained Simply)

Cells can burn two fuels: glucose or fatty acids. They can use both simultaneously, but there’s a competitive relationship- when free fatty acids flood the bloodstream from stress, stored PUFA being mobilized, or excess lipolysis- the cell shifts toward fat burning. And the more the cell burns fat, the more it actively resists glucose burning.

This is the glucose-fatty acid cycle. The Randle Cycle. It’s basic biochemistry, and it explains insulin resistance without ever blaming sugar.

Here’s the sequence: Stress, inflammation, or poor thyroid function triggers the release of free fatty acids from stored body fat. Those fatty acids compete with glucose for entry into the mitochondria. Fatty acid oxidation generates metabolic intermediates- acetyl-CoA, citrate, NADH- that physically inhibit the enzymes responsible for glucose uptake and oxidation. The cell becomes “resistant” to insulin- not because insulin stopped working, but because the cell is already occupied burning a different fuel. The greater the fatty acid load, the stronger the inhibition.

The fats most likely to create this problem are polyunsaturated fatty acids. PUFAs don’t just compete with glucose, but over time, they accumulate in cell membranes and mitochondria, where they oxidize, generate lipid peroxides, damage cardiolipin in the inner mitochondrial membrane, and suppress cytochrome c oxidase. The cumulative effect- over years of high PUFA intake- is progressive impairment of mitochondrial function. Not from a single meal of seed oils, but from decades of accumulation that degrades the cell’s capacity to produce energy cleanly.

“Estrogen and PUFA create insulin resistance, and the resulting state of diabetes and stress de-energizes tissues.” -Ray Peat

So when someone eats a meal high in PUFAs- seed oils, fried food, conventionally raised chicken, most restaurant food- and their blood sugar spikes afterward, they blame the carbohydrates. But the carbs aren’t the problem! It’s the inflammatory fats occupying the cell and blocking glucose oxidation as the problem in that context.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

Signs You Might Be Insulin Resistant

Now, you don’t need a lab test to notice the pattern. The body is your highest intelligence and it always speaks the truth.

The belly that won’t budge. You can get relatively lean everywhere else- arms, legs, face- but the midsection stays. That’s visceral fat. Cortisol and insulin resistance deposit fat specifically around the organs and waistline. It’s a signature marker.

The afternoon crash. You eat lunch. Ninety minutes later you’re fighting to keep your eyes open. Your body can’t efficiently move glucose into cells for energy, so you get a blood sugar rollercoaster- spike, then crash, then cortisol rescue, then fatigue.

Cravings that never stop. Your cells are starving in a sea of glucose. The fuel is in your blood but can’t get into the cell efficiently. So the brain keeps sending hunger signals. This is your cells screaming for real energy to use.

Brain fog after meals. Especially carb-heavy meals. If your mitochondria can’t oxidize glucose cleanly, the excess gets shunted to lactic acid production. Lactic acid in the brain creates that heavy, clouded, can’t-think-straight feeling.

Waking at 3-4am. Blood sugar drops overnight. Liver glycogen depletes. Cortisol and adrenaline surge to rescue the crash. You wake wired, heart pounding, unable to fall back asleep. Then you’re exhausted by 10am.

Fatigue that sleep doesn’t fix. Eight hours and you wake drained. The cells aren’t producing ATP efficiently. No amount of sleep compensates for broken energy metabolism.

Erectile dysfunction. In men, this can show up years before a diabetes diagnosis. Insulin resistance damages the endothelial lining of blood vessels and impairs nitric oxide production. The smallest blood vessels are affected first- and penile vasculature is among the smallest. If you’re under 45 and experiencing ED with no obvious psychological cause, get your fasting insulin checked.

PCOS and irregular periods. In women, insulin resistance is the metabolic engine behind many cases of polycystic ovary syndrome. High insulin stimulates the ovaries to overproduce androgens, disrupting ovulation, driving acne, causing facial hair growth, and tanking fertility. 50-70% of women with PCOS have underlying insulin resistance. If you’ve been told you have PCOS, check insulin as a cause.

Reactive hypoglycemia after meals. You eat, blood sugar spikes, insulin overshoots because the pancreas is working overtime, and two hours later you crash hard- sweaty, shaky, anxious, ravenous. This overcorrection pattern is an early sign that insulin signaling is dysregulated. Many people get evaluated for anxiety or panic disorders when the real issue is postprandial glucose instability.

Recurring infections and itchy skin. High blood sugar impairs immune function and feeds opportunistic microbes. Recurring yeast infections, UTIs, skin fungal issues, or random itchy patches on the lower legs from poor circulation are all associated with insulin resistance. If infections keep coming back despite treatment, check your metabolic health.

If three or more of these describe you, your cells are likely struggling to oxidize glucose. The interventions below address it at the root.

What Actually Drives Insulin Resistance (The Bioenergetic View)

Did you know that “move more, eat less” can worsen insulin resistance? Some backwards stuff huh. That’s mainstream thinking, which obviously isn’t getting results… how many of you gain weight back? Rant for another time.

Anyways, mainstream says: eat too much, move too little, get fat, become resistant. It’s all calorie math. While i’m not going to deny this at all, this is surface level thinking and misses a lot of context.

Bioenergetics goes deeper. Insulin resistance is a cellular energy issue above all else. It’s the downstream consequence of mitochondria that can’t produce ATP efficiently. And when cells can’t produce energy, everything compensates- cortisol rises, free fatty acids flood the blood, inflammation amplifies, and glucose gets locked out.

The real drivers:

PUFA accumulation. Decades of seed oil consumption load your cell membranes and fat stores with linoleic acid and other polyunsaturated fats. These fats suppress cytochrome c oxidase, oxidize into inflammatory metabolites, and directly interfere with glucose entry into the cell. The more PUFA stored in your tissue, the more insulin resistant you become as those fats are liberated under stress. Pretty insidious by the fast food corporations if you ask me (who also tell you it’s only about calories…)

Chronic inflammation. TNF-alpha, IL-6, and other inflammatory cytokines directly impair insulin signaling. Inflammation isn’t a consequence of insulin resistance, it’s a cause! Gut-derived endotoxin, excess estrogen, PUFA-derived prostaglandins, and visceral fat itself all drive this chronic inflammatory state.

Low thyroid function. Thyroid hormone governs your metabolic rate- the speed at which cells produce energy. Low T3 means slow mitochondria. Slow mitochondria mean incomplete glucose oxidation. Incomplete oxidation means lactic acid buildup, cellular energy deficit, and compensatory fat burning. Every step of that sequence worsens insulin sensitivity.

Elevated cortisol and stress hormones. Cortisol mobilizes free fatty acids, promotes gluconeogenesis, deposits visceral fat, and directly opposes insulin’s action. Chronic stress doesn’t just make you feel bad. It creates the metabolic conditions of diabetes through hormonal disruption. Cortisol increases blood sugar independent of what you eat.

Excess estrogen. Estrogen increases free fatty acid release, promotes fat storage, antagonizes thyroid function, and directly creates insulin resistance. Men with high estrogen and low testosterone trend toward metabolic syndrome. Women in states of estrogen dominance trend the same direction.

Micronutrient deficiencies. Without adequate thiamine, magnesium, potassium, zinc, and other cofactors, the enzymes that process glucose through the Krebs cycle and electron transport chain can’t function. The fuel arrives, but your cells can’t use it.

Endotoxin from a compromised gut. LPS crosses a permeable intestinal lining, activates systemic inflammation, raises cortisol, and directly impairs insulin signaling. Many people’s insulin resistance starts in their gut.

Over-reliance on fat burning (and how to measure it). This is the piece that ties the whole bioenergetic picture together- and something you can test yourself.

The respiratory quotient (RQ) measures the ratio of CO2 produced to O2 consumed during metabolism. It tells you, objectively, what fuel your cells are burning. An RQ of 1.0 means pure glucose oxidation. An RQ of 0.7 means pure fat oxidation. Most healthy people at rest sit around 0.85, which is a balanced mix and metabolic flexibility (which is ideal for most.)

Most insulin resistant people sit closer to 0.7. Even when they’re eating carbohydrates!! Their cells are rejecting glucose and defaulting to fat oxidation- not because fat is a better fuel, but because the mitochondria can’t process glucose efficiently. This is the Randle Cycle playing out in real time, measurable in a clinical setting through indirect calorimetry (an RQ test).

This matters because it proves the bioenergetic thesis objectively. Insulin resistance isn’t a sugar problem, but rather, a fuel-burning problem. The cell has shifted to fat oxidation as its default, and that shift- driven by PUFA accumulation, inflammation, low thyroid, and chronic stress- is what blocks glucose from entering. Fix the cell’s ability to oxidize glucose, and the RQ rises back toward 1.0, improving insulin sensitivity.

The 17 Interventions

1. Lose the Weight

You know if this is you. Bar none, most of the benefits will come from weight loss alone. The key thing about weight loss is knowing your starting point before you begin (more on that later.)

Excess body fat- especially visceral fat around the midsection- is an active endocrine organ. It produces estrogen through aromatase. It secretes inflammatory cytokines. It liberates stored PUFAs into the bloodstream. Every pound of excess visceral fat is actively producing the chemicals that cause insulin resistance.

From a bioenergetic perspective, excess adipose tissue is a PUFA reservoir that is like carrying around a metabolic anchor. Every time you’re stressed, every time cortisol rises, every time you skip a meal or exercise intensely, your body mobilizes stored fat for fuel. If that stored fat is loaded with linoleic acid and other polyunsaturated fats from years of seed oil consumption, each mobilization event floods your blood with the exact fatty acids that block glucose oxidation through the Randle Cycle and damage mitochondria through lipid peroxidation.

Adipose tissue also converts androgens to estrogen via aromatase. More body fat = more estrogen. And estrogen directly creates insulin resistance by increasing free fatty acid release and antagonizing thyroid function. The fat isn’t just “extra weight”- especially visceral fat. It’s a metabolically active source of the hormonal and inflammatory signals that keep cells locked in fat-burning mode and unable to oxidize glucose.

Now, you don’t need to be lean to see massive improvement. Losing just 5-10% of body weight dramatically improves insulin sensitivity. That’s 12-24 pounds for a 240-pound person. Not a transformation, but a start. Every pound of visceral fat you lose is one less source of inflammatory cytokines, one less source of estrogen, one less reservoir of stored PUFA waiting to sabotage your next stressful day.

The solution: I preach a small, sustainable caloric deficit through real, nutrient dense food, not restriction diets. Find a macro split that keeps you satiated and in a deficit simultaneously- I’ll cover this in intervention #10. The goal isn’t starvation here, but the goal is to remove the inflammatory load that excess fat creates while preserving your metabolic rate and muscle mass. Lose some weight and every other intervention on this list works dramatically better.

If you need help getting started, download my FREE High Energy Diet Model here. One page that tells you what to eat, how much to eat and a Pro-Metabolic foods list.

2. Learn to Balance Your Blood Sugar (Experiment)

“Nutrition is as complex and open and undefined as metaphysics or cosmology... it’s a process of learning, and figuring things out.” -Ray Peat 2021, Generative Energy Podcast

Every blood sugar crash triggers a cortisol and adrenaline rescue response. Every rescue response mobilizes free fatty acids. Every flood of free fatty acids worsens insulin resistance through the Randle Cycle. The spike-crash-spike rollercoaster is what’s driving the disease forward with every cycle.

When blood sugar drops below the body’s comfort zone, the liver signals for cortisol and adrenaline to manufacture glucose from stored glycogen, muscle tissue, or fat. This is gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis- stress-driven energy. The free fatty acids mobilized during this process compete with glucose for cellular entry, creating a temporary but repeated state of insulin resistance with every crash. Do this three to five times a day for years and the temporary becomes chronic.

The solution: Experiment. Everyone’s glucose response is individual in my coaching experience. Some people spike from white rice and handle fruit perfectly. Others are the opposite. You won’t know until you experiment!

With that said, here are a few strategies that help me and the people I work with:

The apple trick (fructose buffer). Eating an apple or some fruit 15-30 minutes before a carb-heavy meal blunts the glucose spike. Fructose is metabolized primarily by the liver and preferentially restores hepatic glycogen without a large insulin spike. This “primes” the liver to handle incoming glucose more smoothly.

Glycine and gelatin. Glycine is insulinogenic- it helps the body secrete insulin at a more appropriate, measured rate. Adding gelatin or glycine powder to meals, or drinking bone broth with your food, smooths the glucose curve. It also reduces the inflammatory amino acid load from high-muscle-meat meals. Another W for bone broth.

Walk after meals. 10 minutes of light walking after eating activates GLUT4 transporters in muscle cells independently of insulin. Your muscles pull glucose from the blood without requiring insulin signaling at all. This alone can reduce post-meal blood sugar spikes by 30% or more.

3. Don’t Fear Real Sugar (Know Your Carb Tolerance)

The entire wellness industry has convinced you that sugar is poison. That every gram of carbohydrate is pushing you closer to diabetes. That fruit juice is liquid death. Think critically for a second… is that the truth? No. Kempner proved in 1939 and as metabolic science continues to confirm- the issue was never sugar. It was everything preventing your cells from using it.

Glucose and fructose from whole food sources provide the exact fuel your mitochondria are designed to burn. Glucose enters glycolysis, moves through the Krebs cycle, and generates ATP through oxidative phosphorylation. This is clean energy. Fructose is metabolized primarily by the liver, where it refills glycogen stores and sends a powerful safety signal- there is no famine, stand down the stress response. When cortisol drops and liver glycogen is full, the entire hormonal cascade shifts out of survival mode. And the next time you crave sugar or chocolate when you’re stressed? Think about this mechanism.

The fear of sugar creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Avoid carbs, liver glycogen depletes, cortisol rises to manufacture glucose from muscle, free fatty acids flood the blood, Randle Cycle blocks glucose oxidation, you eat a piece of fruit and your blood sugar “spikes” -you blame the fruit. But the spike happened because your metabolism was already in fat-burning stress mode, not because the fruit was harmful.

The solution: Start where you are. If you’re significantly insulin resistant, you may need to limit carbs temporarily while fixing the underlying drivers (inflammation, PUFA, thyroid, gut). But the goal is always to restore carbohydrate tolerance, not permanently avoid carbs. Work your way toward multiple servings of fruit or carbs daily. Real sugar in the context of balanced meals. As your metabolism heals and glucose oxidation picks up, you’ll handle sugar cleanly again. Think about it- children don’t have sugar issues. Their youthful metabolisms burn it effortlessly. That’s the state you’re restoring!

4. Thiamine (Vitamin B1)

You can eat all the glucose in the world, but without thiamine, your cells can’t process it past the first bottleneck. Thiamine deficiency is rampant and almost never tested for, yet it’s one of the most common and fixable causes of impaired glucose metabolism. It’s depleted from alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, chronic stress… couldn’t be you right? ;)

Thiamine is a required cofactor at three separate steps of glucose metabolism. Without it, glucose can’t complete its journey through the Krebs cycle to produce ATP. It gets stuck at pyruvate instead- and pyruvate converts to lactic acid. The cell gets a fraction of the energy it should, and this pretty much means you’re eating glucose but can’t burn it for energy.

Additionally, diabetic patients consistently show lower thiamine levels than healthy controls, and the higher your blood sugar, the more thiamine your kidneys excrete. Diabetes depletes the very nutrient needed to fix it. That’s why supplementation works- research shows high-dose thiamine significantly lowers post-meal blood sugar, reduces AGE formation, and improves glucose tolerance.

The solution: 100-300mg thiamine daily, ideally as benfotiamine (the fat-soluble, more bioavailable form) or TTFD (thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide). Stuff’s great. Take with meals. This is one of the cheapest, safest, most underrated interventions for insulin resistance. Pair with a B-complex for cofactor synergy.

5. Lower Cortisol (Stress-Driven Blood Sugar)

Your fasting blood sugar is high even though you haven’t eaten in 12 hours. Your doctor is confused. You’re confused. You barely ate dinner and woke up at 110 mg/dL. This is the dawn phenomenon- and it has nothing to do with the food you ate.

Cortisol follows a circadian rhythm, peaking in the early morning hours to wake you up and mobilize energy. In healthy metabolism, this is a gentle rise that provides morning alertness. In someone with chronically elevated cortisol, this morning surge is exaggerated. Cortisol commands the liver to dump glucose into the bloodstream through gluconeogenesis- converting muscle protein and glycerol into sugar. Simultaneously, cortisol blocks insulin’s ability to clear that glucose from the blood. The result: high fasting blood sugar, manufactured entirely by your own stress response.

This is why many people have their worst blood sugar readings first thing in the morning, before they’ve eaten anything. The problem isn’t the food you’re eating, but the state of your hormonal system. Cortisol is running the show.

Beyond the dawn effect, chronic stress keeps free fatty acids elevated all day. Every stressor- psychological, physical, inflammatory- triggers cortisol, which mobilizes fat, which blocks glucose oxidation through the Randle Cycle.

You can eat perfectly and still be insulin resistant if your stress physiology is unmanaged. I cannot preach this enough.

The solution: Read my complete cortisol article (13 Ways to Turn Off Cortisol For Good) for the deep dive. But the highlights: eat adequate carbohydrates. Don’t skip breakfast. Cut caffeine if you’re metabolically compromised. Address gut inflammation with activated charcoal or Enterosgel. Get morning sunlight. Consider progesterone or niacinamide to oppose cortisol. Embrace elevated emotions. Lower the stress chemistry and watch your fasting blood sugar normalize.

6. Potassium

Potassium is incredible. Most “insulin resistance” articles on Google never mention it- yet it’s directly involved in insulin secretion, glucose uptake, and glycogen storage. Most Americans get roughly half the recommended daily intake. And modern diets stripped of fruit, potatoes, and dairy make this worse.

Potassium is required for insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells. Low potassium impairs the beta cell’s ability to release insulin in response to glucose. But it goes deeper: potassium is also essential for glycogen synthesis in the liver and muscles. Without adequate potassium, the body can’t store glucose as glycogen efficiently, leaving more glucose floating in the blood. Studies consistently show that low serum potassium is associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, and potassium supplementation improves insulin sensitivity.

Potassium also opposes sodium at the cellular level in ways that support healthy membrane potential and cellular function. When the cell’s electrical gradient is off- from low potassium, high sodium, or both- nutrient transport across the membrane suffers. Glucose transport included.

The solution: Get potassium from food first. Potatoes (900mg per medium potato), bananas, orange juice, coconut water, dairy, and avocados are excellent sources. Aim for 4,700mg daily from food.

7. Get Sunlight, Avoid Blue Light

Your blood sugar regulation is yoked to your circadian rhythm. It’s WILD how big of an impact this has. When light exposure is chaotic- screens blasting blue light until midnight, no morning sun, artificial light all day- your hormonal timing goes haywire.

Insulin sensitivity is naturally highest in the morning and decreases throughout the day. This rhythm is set by light exposure. Morning sunlight hitting the retina synchronizes the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which coordinates cortisol’s morning peak and insulin’s peak sensitivity in tandem. When you skip morning light and bathe in artificial blue light at night, cortisol stays elevated in the evening, melatonin gets suppressed, and the natural insulin sensitivity rhythm inverts. You become more insulin resistant at the times you’re eating dinner and snacking. That sucks right?

Beyond circadian effects, sunlight drives vitamin D synthesis. Vitamin D deficiency is strongly correlated with insulin resistance, and supplementation has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity.

The solution: 20-30 minutes of direct sunlight a day. No sunglasses. Skin exposed. Don’t burn- get it morning or evening. This alone resets your cortisol curve and optimizes the circadian insulin rhythm. After sunset, minimize screens or use blue-light blocking glasses. Keep your sleeping environment completely dark. The insulin sensitivity gains from fixing your light environment are real and completely free.

8. Taurine

Did you know taurine is the most abundant amino acid in testicles? Fun fact to share haha. Anyways, taurine is always on deck for me- one of my favorite tools in the toolbelt.

So high blood sugar creates oxidative stress. Oxidative stress damages mitochondria. Damaged mitochondria can’t oxidize glucose efficiently. Blood sugar stays high. Another loop!! (Seeing a looping pattern yet?)

Taurine breaks this loop here. It’s the most abundant free amino acid in the body and one of the strongest intracellular antioxidants we have. It protects mitochondria from oxidative damage, and supports bile acid production for proper fat metabolism. It also reduces the inflammatory signals that block insulin receptor function and improves insulin secretion.

Meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials show taurine supplementation significantly reduces fasting blood sugar, HbA1c, and HOMA-IR in diabetic patients. 3g daily showed the strongest improvements. It also lowers triglycerides and total cholesterol, both of which track alongside insulin resistance.

The solution: 1-3g taurine daily, split between meals. It’s cheap, widely available, and remarkably safe even at higher doses. Whole food sources include shellfish, dark poultry meat, and organ meats. Eat shrimp! Taurine is one of the quietest, most effective metabolic support compounds available.

9. Find Your Macro Split

It’s easy to get caught up in macro splits. I honestly don’t care which you pick- but the rule is that you need to be in a caloric deficit while maintaining maximum nutrient density.

Fat loss reduces the inflammatory load driving insulin resistance point blank, above all else. But the way you achieve the deficit matters enormously. A caloric deficit from starvation, excessive fasting, or nutrient-poor food creates a stress response- cortisol rises, muscle breaks down, metabolic rate drops, and insulin resistance can actually worsen even as you lose weight. A deficit from nutrient-dense whole food, adequate protein, and metabolically supportive macro ratios, from a healed metabolism first, preserves muscle, maintains thyroid function, and allows insulin sensitivity to improve as the inflammatory fat comes off.

The solution: Three paths work well depending on your current metabolic state:

Path 1- Medium protein, lower fat, higher carbohydrate. This works best if your metabolism is relatively intact but you’re carrying excess weight. Start a 500 calorie deficit. Adequate protein (0.7-0.8g per pound of lean mass, up to 1g lb/bw if already lean) preserves muscle well. Lower fat reduces caloric density. Higher carbs support thyroid function, liver glycogen, and keeps cortisol under control. Think: lean meat, potatoes, rice, fruit, low-fat dairy. This is what i’d recommend for most of you reading this.

Path 2- High carbohydrate, low fat, low protein (Kempner-style). This is the most aggressive approach for someone whose insulin resistance is driven primarily by inflammatory fat intake and endotoxin rather than carbohydrate intolerance. White rice, fruit, fruit juice, minimal fat, minimal protein. Think of the sugar diet from 2025. It’s essentially what Kempner used to reverse diabetes in 1939- and the mechanism makes sense through a bioenergetic lens- and what Peat would lean towards for in this situation i’d imagine. By eliminating nearly all dietary fat, you stop feeding the Randle Cycle entirely. No competing fatty acids means glucose gets a clear path into the cell. By reducing protein, you lower the endotoxin and inflammatory amino acid load on the gut and liver. The body shifts fully into glucose oxidation mode. One of my 60 year old ladies I coach has lost 40lbs+ (and still going) following this exact method.

Ultimately in this state, you want to have a dominant fuel source. The other option is…

Path 3- Modified ketogenic approach (short-term therapeutic bypass). I spent this entire article explaining why chronic low-carb diets don’t fix the cell. So why is this here? Because there’s a difference between low-carb as an ideology and ketosis as a short-term clinical tool. If you’re significantly insulin resistant right now- fasting glucose over 120, HbA1c over 6.0, reactive hypoglycemia after every carb-containing meal- your glucose metabolism may be too impaired to handle carbohydrates in the short term. Temporarily bypassing glucose metabolism through ketosis allows you to lose weight and reduce inflammation while the underlying cellular dysfunction heals. The key word is temporarily. Weeks to months, not years. Once inflammation drops, weight comes down, and mitochondrial function improves, you reintroduce carbohydrates gradually and restore glucose oxidation. The goal is always to get back to burning sugar cleanly. Take my Peat card… but I see a modified keto diet as therapy in this context. Just know what you’re getting into and don’t be an idiot doing it! Do I recommend this for most of you though? No. Go Path 1.

All paths require a deficit and all require nutrient density. Track your intake for 2-4 weeks to find your number, then stay consistent.

Quick Pause - High Energy Coaching

Everything here works. But if insulin resistance has been running the show for months or years, a Substack article gives you the map. Coaching gives you tactical personalization.

All of my content is free and I plan to keep it that way. But if you’re ready to make a real change- not just read about it- I work one-on-one with clients to reverse insulin resistance, optimize metabolism, and transform body composition without fad diets, fasting, or pharmaceuticals.

16 weeks. One-on-one with me. Personalized protocols built around your labs, your body, and your life. That’s more valuable than any paid subscription.

Book your discovery call here.

Now back to the interventions.

10. Strength Training as a Glucose Sink

Your muscles are the largest reservoir for glucose storage in the body. When they’re small, underused, and glycogen-depleted from inactivity, there’s nowhere for blood sugar to go. Sedentary muscle is insulin resistant muscle.

Muscle contraction activates GLUT4 glucose transporters independently of insulin. This is huge. It means that when you train, your muscles pull glucose from the blood through a pathway that completely bypasses insulin resistance. The cell doesn’t need the insulin signal to work. Contraction alone opens the door. This effect lasts 24-48 hours post-exercise, creating a sustained window of improved insulin sensitivity after every session.

Beyond the acute effect, more muscle mass means more glucose storage capacity. Skeletal muscle stores roughly 80% of insulin-mediated glucose disposal. A person with 20 more pounds of muscle has dramatically more glycogen storage capacity than someone with less lean mass. Building muscle is building a bigger glucose reservoir.

Strength training also improves mitochondrial density and function in muscle cells, enhances fat oxidation, reduces visceral fat, and increases metabolic rate- all of which compound the insulin-sensitizing effects.

The solution: Lift weights 3-5 days per week. and ladies, not pink dumbbells and “toning.” You won’t get too big haha. Lift with intensity. Every pound of muscle you add is a pound of glucose-clearing machinery that works around the clock. If you do nothing else on this list, train hard with weights. It’s the single most powerful glucose disposal tool that exists.

11. Leverage Starches Post-Workout

If you’re insulin resistant, you’ve probably been told to fear carbohydrates at every meal. But there’s a window after training where the rules change completely… and most people are wasting it. This is how you eat carbs to get lean and strong right here.

For 1-2 hours after resistance training, your muscle cells are in a fundamentally different metabolic state. Glycogen stores are depleted from the session. GLUT4 transporters have been activated by contraction and are sitting on the cell surface, pulling glucose from the blood independently of insulin. Insulin sensitivity in muscle tissue is at its highest point of the entire day. The cell will soak up glucose right now. It will take it efficiently, store it as glycogen, and use it for recovery and protein synthesis.

This is the one time where a large bolus of starchy carbohydrates doesn’t create the problematic insulin spike that insulin resistant people fear- because the glucose has somewhere to go.

If you’re going to eat your biggest carb meal of the day, put it here. You’re using the training session to temporarily bypass your insulin resistance and shuttle glucose exactly where it needs to go.

The solution: Within 1-2 hours after training, eat a starch-heavy meal to refill muscle glycogen. White rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, or gluten-free grains with a moderate protein source. Keep fat lower in this meal. Save your higher-fat meals for times further from training. This is strategic nutrient timing that gets you right.

12. Aspirin/Ginger

Chronic, low-grade inflammation drives a self-sustaining loop: inflammatory prostaglandins from PUFA metabolism impair insulin signaling, leading to impaired glucose metabolism producing more oxidative stress, then oxidative stress liberates more stored PUFA, causing more inflammatory prostaglandins. Another loop.

Aspirin inhibits COX-1 and COX-2, reducing prostaglandin synthesis directly. This breaks the inflammatory loop at the production step. But aspirin does something else relevant to insulin resistance: it displaces T3 and T4 from binding proteins in the blood, increasing the unbound, bioavailable fraction. The body’s total thyroid hormone doesn’t change, but more of it becomes immediately available to cells. This transient increase in free T3 supports glucose oxidation at the mitochondrial level- exactly where insulin resistant cells are struggling. High-dose salicylate therapy has also been shown in clinical research to significantly improve insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetics.

The solution: 325-500mg aspirin with food. Always take with vitamin K2 to support clotting factors. Use for 2-4 weeks to break the loop, then reassess. Hans has a great in-depth article on every concern and studies with aspirin.

Now if aspirin doesn’t agree with you- ginger is the next best alternative. Ginger supplementation reduces fasting blood sugar, HbA1c, and HOMA-IR in type 2 diabetics. Ginger also stimulates gastric motility, enhances thermogenesis, and reduces endotoxin-mediated gut inflammation. Fresh ginger in cooking, ginger tea daily, or 1-2g dried ginger powder with meals. I am big on the ginger tea- I get everyone I work with on it.

13. Avoid Heavy Mixed Meals (Choose Your Fuel Source)

The modern meal combines high fat AND high carb AND high protein on the same plate. Burger with fries. Pasta with cream sauce. Pizza. These meals create the worst possible metabolic scenario- massive insulin secretion to handle the carbs while simultaneously flooding the blood with fats that compete with glucose for oxidation.

When you eat a meal that’s high in both fat and carbohydrate, your body faces a fuel conflict. Insulin rises to handle the glucose. But the dietary fat enters the bloodstream simultaneously, competing for mitochondrial oxidation. The Randle Cycle kicks in. Cells preferentially burn the fat and resist the insulin-driven glucose uptake. Blood sugar stays elevated longer. Insulin stays elevated longer. The pancreas works harder. Over months and years of heavy mixed meals, this pattern wears down insulin sensitivity and beta cell function.

This doesn’t mean you need to eat carbs and fat in completely separate meals. Small amounts of fat with carbs is fine and can actually slow glucose absorption beneficially. The problem is the heavy mixed meals in a single sitting. That’s where the Randle Cycle conflict becomes significant. But if you’re eating whole food sources with mixed carbs/fat? Don’t get neurotic about this.

The solution: Lean toward choosing a dominant fuel source per meal. Higher carb meals with moderate protein and lower fat. Or higher fat meals with moderate protein and lower carbs. This allows your cells to process one fuel efficiently instead of competing substrates blocking each other. You don’t need to be militant about it. Just stop combining massive portions of fat and carbs in the same sitting… meaning fast food stops.

14. Improve Thyroid Function

If insulin resistance is a cellular energy crisis, thyroid hormone is the master switch that determines how much energy each cell can produce. Low T3 doesn’t just slow your metabolism in a vague, general sense. It directly reduces the number of glucose transporters on your muscle cells, slows mitochondrial output, and forces the body into compensatory fat burning- which through the Randle Cycle, blocks glucose oxidation even further.

T3 governs GLUT4 transporter expression in muscle tissue. Fewer transporters means less glucose enters the cell, regardless of how much insulin is present. T3 also drives mitochondrial biogenesis- the creation of new mitochondria. Low thyroid means fewer mitochondria and slower oxidation across every tissue.

Here’s the vicious cycle specific to insulin resistance: the liver requires both glucose and T3 to convert inactive T4 into active T3. When glucose metabolism is impaired- as it is in insulin resistance- hepatic T3 conversion drops. Lower T3 slows the metabolic rate further. Slower metabolism worsens glucose oxidation. The cycle tightens. This is why many insulin resistant people develop hypothyroid symptoms even with “normal” TSH- their conversion is sabotaged by the very metabolic dysfunction they’re trying to fix.

Breaking this cycle is foundational. Every other intervention on this list works better when T3 is optimized.

The solution: I’ve written a complete guide on thyroid optimization (22 Ways to Increase T3 Naturally). The short version: adequate carbohydrates (the liver needs glycogen for conversion), selenium, zinc, copper, vitamin A from liver. Monitor body temperature and resting pulse as functional markers- consistently below 97.8°F and under 75 bpm despite good nutrition suggests impaired T3. Work with a practitioner who understands thyroid for thyroid hormone use if natural support isn’t moving the needle.

15. Niacinamide (Vitamin B3)

Insulin resistance traps the body in a self-reinforcing fat-burning loop. Cortisol and adrenaline mobilize free fatty acids from stored body fat. Those fatty acids flood the blood, block glucose oxidation through the Randle Cycle, oxidize into lipid peroxides, and damage the mitochondria that need to be working to break the cycle.

Niacinamide helps to break this loop.

First, it directly inhibits lipolysis- the release of free fatty acids from adipose tissue. This is the mobilization step. By reducing the flood of free fatty acids entering the bloodstream, niacinamide lowers the Randle Cycle competition, reduces lipid peroxidation, and gives glucose a cleaner entry into the cell. Less circulating free fatty acid means less inflammation, less mitochondrial damage, and less fuel for the stress chemistry that keeps the cycle spinning.

Second, niacinamide is the precursor to NAD+- the coenzyme that accepts electrons at every major step of glucose oxidation. Without adequate NAD+, glucose metabolism stalls at multiple points simultaneously. Niacinamide restores the coenzyme pool that allows the entire energy production pathway to function.

The solution: 100-200mg niacinamide, 2-3 times daily with meals. Stay under 500mg total if you’re actively losing weight, as higher doses can over-suppress lipolysis and slow fat loss. Not niacin (which causes flushing and has a different metabolic profile). Niacinamide. Pair with thiamine for compounding cofactor support- they work on different steps of the same energy production pathway.

16. Eat Dairy (Vitamin D, Vitamin K, and Calcium)

The calcium-to-phosphorus ratio is off in most modern diets, and the resulting parathyroid hormone elevation creates metabolic stress that worsens insulin resistance. Most people eating high-protein, low-dairy diets are driving this imbalance every meal without knowing it.

Inadequate calcium raises parathyroid hormone (PTH). Elevated PTH promotes intracellular calcium dysregulation, activates inflammatory pathways, and has been directly associated with increased insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Meat is high in phosphorus. Without enough calcium to balance it, every high-protein meal pushes PTH higher.

Dairy solves this. Milk has a calcium-to-phosphorus ratio near 1.3:1- nearly ideal for suppressing PTH. But dairy brings more than calcium. It provides vitamin D (in fortified forms), vitamin K2 (especially in fermented dairy like cheese and yogurt), and conjugated linoleic acid- all of which support insulin sensitivity through distinct mechanisms. Vitamin D improves insulin receptor expression. Vitamin K2 directs calcium into bones rather than soft tissues and supports pancreatic beta cell function. The whey protein in dairy stimulates GLP-1 secretion naturally- the same incretin hormone that Ozempic mimics pharmaceutically.

The reduction of PTH through adequate calcium and vitamin D intake is closely associated with reduced obesity, reduced insulin resistance, and reduced inflammation.

The solution: 1-2 cups of milk daily if tolerated. Skyr yogurt, aged cheese, and kefir are excellent options. If lactose intolerant, use eggshell calcium supplements. Match your calcium to your protein intake- the more meat you eat, the more dairy or supplemental calcium you need.

17. Elevated Emotions (Joy Lowers Blood Sugar)

Everything above addresses the biochemical drivers. But there’s a final piece that biology alone won’t solve.

Chronic negative emotional states- fear, resentment, frustration, loneliness, boredom- aren’t just psychological experiences, but are physiological events. Every moment of sustained negative emotion activates the sympathetic nervous system, raises cortisol and adrenaline, mobilizes free fatty acids, and creates the exact hormonal environment that drives insulin resistance. You can eat perfectly and supplement perfectly and still be metabolically compromised if your stress response is chronically activated.

Research on psychoneuroimmunology consistently demonstrates that elevated emotional states- genuine joy, laughter, gratitude, love, creative flow, awe—-shift the autonomic nervous system from sympathetic to parasympathetic. This shift reduces cortisol, reduces inflammatory cytokines, improves vagal tone, and directly enhances insulin sensitivity. Laughter alone has been shown in clinical studies to reduce post-meal blood sugar spikes in diabetic patients. Not by a little- but by a clinically meaningful amount.

Flow states- deep absorption in meaningful work or creative activity- drop cortisol to near zero. Social connection and physical affection release oxytocin, which has direct insulin-sensitizing properties.

The solution: Do the hard thing you’ve been avoiding. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh until your stomach hurts. Protect your flow states. Cut content that enrages you. Reduce screen time. Get outside. Play. Create. Move your body for the joy of it, not just the metabolic benefit. This isn’t woo. This is physiology that your glucose monitor will confirm.

Putting It All Together

Fix insulin resistance by healing your cells. That begins with:

Lose fat: Significant benefits come from fat loss alone.

Breakfast: Excessive fasting is a stressor that raises cortisol and mobilizes free fatty acids. High protein, moderate carbs, adequate fat. Eggs, fruit, skyr yogurt, milk.

Meals: 3-5 balanced meals daily. No long gaps. Enough protein to preserve muscle. Enough carbs to lower stress hormones. Enough fat for satisfaction. Follow The High Energy Diet Model.

Training: Lift heavy, 3-5 days per week. Walk after meals. Build your glucose sink.

Supplements: Thiamine, taurine, niacinamide, potassium, and vitamin D as the foundation. Aspirin or ginger for anti-inflammatory support if needed.

The macro question: If your metabolism is relatively intact, go higher carb, lower fat, moderate protein in a deficit. If you’re significantly insulin resistant right now, go with a Kempner style protocol or a modified ketogenic approach. Only if seriously struggling (not most of you here) Either way- eat real food. Nothing processed, and nothing from a factory. Seriously, just EAT LOTS OF REAL FOOD!

The High Energy Approach

These 17 interventions work. But if insulin resistance has been running your metabolism for months or years, your body has adapted to broken energy production as its operating system. Unwinding that takes precision.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Do your own research, work with someone qualified, and don’t outsource your health decisions to anyone- including me.

“Nick, for the last two days I’ve woken up without knee pain. It’s been 10 years.”

Ten years. A decade of waking up and the first thing he registers is pain. He’s worked an office job his whole adult life to support his family, doing everything he was supposed to do- he showed up, provided, pushed through, never complained. Ate what was convenient. Made money. Slept when he could. Sat under fluorescent lights for eight hours a day, came home drained, and did it again tomorrow. He followed the script society laid out perfectly.

That script is what broke him.

Nobody told him that the job, the food, the pace, the lack of sunlight, the stress he swallowed daily for decades- all of it was degrading his biology one day at a time. Nobody told him because nobody wants to admit this truth: that our modern lifestyle is producing the sickest, most medicated population in human history. Society sells us this as normal and it’s slowly destroying the people living it. The processed food, the screen addiction, the chronic sitting, the sleep deprivation worn as a badge, the emotional suppression disguised as professionalism. We built a world that runs on stress and then we act confused when everyone is sick, medicated, numb, and falling apart by forty-five.

My dad wasn’t broken. He was perfectly adapted to a broken environment. And he’s not the exception, he’s the average.

But something shifted in him. He decided to spend a few weeks focused on increasing his metabolism and embracing elevated emotions. The moment it clicked, the moment his heart opened and metabolism improved… 10 years of chronic pain was gone.

I tell you this because it captures something most people never realize about chronic stress. It doesn’t just make you feel anxious. It makes your knees hurt. It makes your gut leak. It makes your face age. It makes your personality rigid. It rewires your brain so you can’t feel love the way you used to. It changes who you are at every level- biological, emotional, spiritual- and it does it so gradually that you think the diminished version today is the real you.

It’s not.

My cortisol article hit home and thousands of you realized that you’ve been living on emergency mode for years. So today, this article is going a level deeper- to a depth i’ve not shared before. Let’s dive in…

If we learn to see problems in terms of a general disorder of energy metabolism, we can begin to solve them.” -Ray Peat

How Stress Happens (And Why It Seemingly Never Turns Off)

Imagine you are a gazelle. Just existing, eating grass, enjoying the sun. Great day. Now all of a sudden- a cheetah hops out of nowhere! Holy shit! You gotta go!! After a wild chase and successfully outpacing the cheetah without getting eaten- you go right back to existing. Eating grass, enjoying the sun. Great day.

This is a normal stress response. In the moment that cheetah comes after you- stress hormones mobilize to get you to take action ASAP. You are only focused on survival- to escape the threat. But after the threat is gone, those stress hormones resolve and you forget about being chased.

But, what happens today is that you feel EVERY SINGLE DAY as if a cheetah is chasing you. You are on edge while driving. Scared of eating too many calories. Anxious about tomorrow, while regretting choices from yesterday. You fire in your mind stress hormones equal to being hunted 24/7. That right there is chronic stress. Can you imagine the damage that does to an organism?

Now, chronic stress like this is not just by one amped up stress reaction. It’s not just by your work stress. Rather, it’s a load coming from dozens of inputs like metabolic stress, endotoxin, oxidative stress & nutrient deficiencies. And all of these? They add up and turn you into a person who can never shut it off. But even more insidious- unbeknownst to you- is that the more you keep this stress response up, the harder it is to turn it off. Cortisol desensitizes receptors that detect “enough cortisol” and end up going haywire- leading to an overproduction. This goes on day by day, month by month, year by year until you are a diminished version of yourself that is no longer a functioning, feeling human- but one that is propped up by pills, pain and cheap entertainment. Heart disease, cancer, stroke- the top killers on the planet- are all heavily linked to this exact mechanism.

So the question is, how does one break this loop? Let’s explore the 2 pathways to do so- but first, I want to share with you the damages of chronic stress in a person’s body and personality. (Couldn’t be you right?)

The Mind and Body of a Chronically Stressed Individual

“Emotions and personality can have a tremendous impact on the functioning and health of virtually every cell in the body.” - Robert Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

This is the part that changes people’s lives when they hear it. Consider it your wakeup call. Because most people think their stress responses are their personality and their aches and pains are just aging. They’re not- they are symptoms of a system running on emergency systems, and I’m going to prove it to you right now.

It starves your cells. Chronic cortisol keeps blood sugar elevated by breaking down your own tissue- muscle, bone, connective tissue- and converting it to glucose. But that glucose isn’t being used efficiently because stress simultaneously suppresses thyroid function, which controls how well your mitochondria actually burn fuel. So you’re cannibalizing your own body for energy your cells can’t even use properly. The result is a system that’s simultaneously wired and exhausted- running hot on stress hormones while the cells underneath are running cold on actual energy production.

It kills your gut. Chronic stress redirects blood away from your digestive organs and toward your muscles and brain- survival priorities. Do that for a day, no problem. Do it for months and your intestinal lining thins, stomach acid drops, motility slows, and the gut barrier starts leaking. Endotoxin crosses into your bloodstream and triggers an immune response that keeps the HPA axis firing even harder. You’re now inflamed from the inside, and the inflammation itself becomes a stressor that produces more cortisol. The loop feeds itself… and trust me when I say gut issues like this are not something you want to deal with.

It eats your hormones. Cortisol and your sex hormones compete for the same raw material- pregnenolone. Under chronic stress, the body chooses survival over reproduction every time. Pregnenolone gets funneled into cortisol instead of testosterone, DHEA, and progesterone. Libido disappears. Recovery tanks. Morning erections vanish. Women lose their cycle or it becomes erratic. You lose the hormonal drive that keeps you building, creating, wanting- and you chalk it up to age when it’s actually stress stealing the precursor.

It rewires your brain. Cortisol shrinks the hippocampus over time- the region that handles memory, learning, and emotional regulation. It suppresses the prefrontal cortex, which governs your ability to plan, decide, and see the bigger picture. And it enlarges the amygdala- the brain’s threat detection center. The net effect: you can’t think clearly, you can’t remember well, you react to everything emotionally, and your brain is literally being restructured to prioritize fear over reason.

It ages you visibly. Cortisol breaks down collagen- the structural protein in your skin, joints, and connective tissue. That’s why chronically stressed people look older than they are. Skin thins. Wrinkles deepen. Wounds heal slower. Joints ache. And at the DNA level, chronic cortisol shortens telomeres- the protective caps on your chromosomes that determine how fast your cells age. The stress you carry in your mind is writing itself onto your face and into your biology. And ladies, no amount of skincare is going to fix your wrinkles if you’re stressed out of your damn mind!!

It suppresses your immune system. Acute cortisol is anti-inflammatory- that’s useful in an emergency. Chronic cortisol becomes immunosuppressive. White blood cell production drops. Antibody response weakens. Your ability to fight infection deteriorates. This is why you get sick every time you’re stressed, and why recovery takes longer than it used to. Your immune system isn’t broken- it’s being held down by a hormone that won’t stop telling it to stand down.

It fragments your sleep. Cortisol and melatonin are inversely related. When cortisol stays elevated at night, melatonin can’t rise, and deep sleep becomes impossible. You lay in bed wired. You fall asleep from exhaustion and wake at 3 AM when cortisol surges to rescue crashing blood sugar. Sleep becomes shallow and fragmented. And poor sleep raises cortisol the next morning, which makes the next night worse. Another loop that tightens on itself.

Now here’s where it gets personal- because all of that physical damage expresses itself as personality changes that most people mistake for who they actually are.

The short fuse. You snap at people you love over nothing. Someone chews too loud. Someone changes plans last minute. Someone asks you a simple question and you respond like they insulted your mother. Road rage. Disproportionate frustration at things you know don’t matter. You feel like you’re always on the edge of a fight. Afterward you think “why did I react like that?” and you don’t have an answer. Here’s the answer: your amygdala is swollen from chronic cortisol exposure and your magnesium is depleted, which means the neural brake that’s supposed to catch your reaction before it leaves your mouth isn’t working. You’re not an angry person… you’re a depleted person with no buffer left.

The emotional flatness. This one is the most disorienting. You’re not sad. You’re not happy. You’re just... there. Music doesn’t hit the same. Sunsets don’t move you. Your partner says something loving and you know you should feel something but the signal is dampened. You go through the motions of your hobbies but the spark is gone. Sex drive disappears. Laughter feels forced. People ask “what’s wrong?” and you say “nothing” because technically nothing is wrong- everything is just muted. This is dopamine downregulation from prolonged cortisol exposure. The reward circuit went quiet. You’re not depressed in the clinical sense, but you’re metabolically depleted in a way that suppresses the neurochemistry of pleasure.

The inability to get present. This is the signature of chronic stress. You can’t sit in a room without your mind spinning. You can’t eat a meal without planning the next three. You can’t hold a conversation without rehearsing what you’ll say or replaying what you said earlier. You’re physically here but mentally you’re always somewhere else- future-tripping on what could go wrong or past-dwelling on what already did. Your partner is talking and you’re nodding but you left the room five minutes ago. You know you’re doing it. You can’t stop. This isn’t a focus problem, but it’s cortisol locking you in sympathetic overdrive. Presence requires a parasympathetic state your body can’t access because the threat detection system never turns off.

The inferiority complex. Everyone seems ahead of you. Everyone seems more confident, more together, more successful. You compare constantly. Social media destroys you. You feel fundamentally behind in a race you can’t even define. This isn’t insecurity as a character trait- this is cortisol activating the amygdala and suppressing the prefrontal cortex, which means you lose the ability to see yourself accurately. Your brain fixates on threats, including social threats. You perceive yourself as inadequate because your nervous system is wired for threat detection, and in a social species, being “less than” IS a threat! I lived here for years and thought it was just who I was… now I don’t give a shit lol.

The control and rigidity. When your internal world feels chaotic- when the nervous system can’t regulate itself- your mind compensates by trying to control the external world. Everything has to be done a certain way. You can’t delegate. You can’t tolerate uncertainty. You over-prepare. You plan obsessively. Spontaneity feels dangerous. You cling to routine not because you love structure but because any deviation feels like the ground might give out. This is the stressed nervous system trying to buy safety through control. Perfectionism isn’t a personality type, but to me it’s an anxiety management strategy.

The withdrawal. People drain you. Plans feel like obligations. You cancel at the last minute and feel relief. Friday night used to be exciting- now you’d rather be alone. You tell yourself you’re just introverted. Maybe you are. But the withdrawal deepens over time in a way that introversion doesn’t explain. You’re retreating because social interaction requires energy the stressed nervous system doesn’t have. And isolation makes everything worse because human connection is one of the primary regulators of the HPA axis. The withdrawal feeds the very thing driving the withdrawal.

None of this is who you are. The body symptoms and the personality symptoms are the same thing- a biological system running on emergency power for too long, expressing itself through every channel it has. When you lower the stress load and restore the energy system, and the real you comes back- the connected, whole version of yourself.

I know because it happened to me. The person I am now- warm, creative, emotionally there, able to sit in a room and actually be there- didn’t exist when my stress was off the charts. I thought that rigid, anxious, emotionally flat version was the real me. It was a survival adaptation. The real me was underneath… just waiting for a biological upgrade.

Why Healing Requires Two Paths

“Our nervous system is intimately connected to our cells” -Ray Peat, Generative Energy Podcast #55

Unfortunately, the world tries to solve chronic stress without understanding metabolism and consciousness.

Instead you see mindfulness meditation apps worth billions, a booming pharmaceutical industry, cleanses, breathwork, therapy services, journaling, shrooms, positive affirmations… An entire industry built on the idea that stress lives in your mind- and if you just simply think differently, the stress will resolve.

This stuff is useful don’t get me wrong- but to approach it without including both metabolism and consciousness is a path that leads to a dead end. It never finished the job. Here’s why.

There are two paths to healing chronic stress in my eyes- and you need both. But the order matters.

Top-down alone fails because you can’t meditate your way out of crashing blood sugar. You can’t journal your way past a thyroid running at 20%. You can’t positive-think through a gut dumping endotoxin into your bloodstream. You can’t breathe your way out of a body running on cortisol because it doesn’t have enough glucose to run on anything else. The mind cannot override a body that is physically starving for energy. It will keep generating the feelings of threat no matter what story you tell yourself because the threat is real. So in essence, your cells are chronically stressed- not you.

But bottom-up alone also has a ceiling. You can eat perfectly, sleep well, optimize every biomarker- and still carry the emotional patterns that chronic stress carved into your nervous system. The rigid thinking or a blocked heart. The inability to feel safe even when you are safe. Biology creates the conditions for change, but sometimes the nervous system needs a new experience to actually change. That’s where consciousness work earns its place.

That is why these path are meant to work together and never meant to be separate strategies. They’re a loop.

Fix metabolism from the bottom and cellular energy rises. The nervous system calms. The electric body opens. Elevated states become accessible, naturally- not just “thinking positively”. And those elevated states- gratitude, love, awe- produce their own measurable biology. Cortisol drops. Heart rate variability improves. The immune system upregulates, which improves metabolic conditions further. Which makes the next round of emotional practice even more powerful.

The upward spiral replaces the downward one.

Every great yogi in history understood this intuitively. They were meticulous about food, sleep, and how they used their energy- not out of vanity, but because they discovered through centuries of practice that the body has to be nourished, warm, and calm before consciousness can open. They used these as tools to access the greater force that heals. Clean fuel in, coherent system out, deeper states become accessible. They built the metabolic foundation that made the spiritual practice work.

“In vegetables and fruits, God has infused medicinal power to help in overcoming disease. Even these, however, have but a limited potency. The organs of the body are essentially sustained by the energy of God, and the person who employs various methods to increase this energy will have at his command a greater power for healing than is afforded by any medicine or diet.” -Paramahansa Yogananda

That’s the model. Metabolism lays the foundation and consciousness is the house. The foundation has to come first in order for the house to be constructed well.

Which is why the interventions that follow are ordered the way they are. We’re not going to try to shift consciousness while the cells are crapping all over themselves. We build the foundation, then we build on top of it. Each layer creates the conditions for the next one to land.

Quick Pause- The High Energy Diet Model

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

The 11 Interventions (In The Exact Order They Need To Happen)

The order matters. We are not going to try and fix the HPA axis while the cells are stripped for energy, and improving thyroid while endotoxin is pissing off your gut doesn’t work. Each layer sets the condition for the next one to work.

Metabolic foundation first. Not because the consciousness work is less important- but because increasing metabolism makes it significantly easier to create higher levels of being with the top down work.

1. Meet Caloric and Micronutrient Demands

Low energy availability is the primary driver. When energy coming in is low, cortisol rises to break down your own muscle tissue into glucose, and every blood sugar crash throughout the day triggers another cortisol rescue spike. The body simply cannot turn off stress chemistry while the cells are starving for fuel! But calories alone aren’t enough- a body running on 3,000 calories of crap processed food is simultaneously overfed and malnourished, giving it energy without the cofactors to use it. The stress response stays elevated because the raw materials for ATP production, hormone synthesis, and neurotransmitter balance are missing even when total calories are adequate. Put simply, if you are trying everything and still under eating calories and nutrients- you will not make progress!

A body in caloric deficit cannot recalibrate the HPA axis because the HPA axis IS the solution to the energy deficit- it’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do. Until the cells get enough glucose through food, cortisol will keep manufacturing it through stress. And even when calories are sufficient, if the micronutrient density is low- if you’re getting energy without the B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, iron, and fat-soluble vitamins that run the electron transport chain and build hormones- the mitochondria can’t convert that fuel into usable energy,

Solution: Please eat enough food from sources dense enough to actually restore the system. Keep carbohydrates above 150g daily (clean carbs) as an absolute floor if possible, ideally more during active recovery, and eat at regular intervals throughout the day so your blood sugar never crashes hard enough to trigger a cortisol rescue. Eat eggs, meat, oysters and liver as your multivitamins. The goal isn’t just enough calories, but rather a micronutrient surplus so that every cell in the body can produce energy through clean oxidative metabolism rather than through stress chemistry.

If you need help knowing what to eat, download my FREE High Energy Diet Model. One page sheet showing you my handpicked foods for energy production & body composition.

2. Sleep Quality

Crap sleep prevents overnight cortisol clearance, and that deficit compounds daily. Every night of poor sleep means the HPA axis starts the next morning from a higher baseline, never getting the full reset it requires. Netflix is not more important than this. Go to sleep on time!

Delta brain wave sleep is when glucocorticoid receptor sensitivity is restored, growth hormone peaks, and the brain’s glymphatic system clears metabolic waste. That 3 AM wakeup most people dismiss as insomnia is almost always a cortisol rescue spike triggered by depleted liver glycogen, where the body runs out of stored fuel overnight and cortisol surges to compensate.

Solution: Cold, Dark and Quiet at the minimum. Remember deep sleep is energetically demanding- so enough brain energy is critical. If you struggle with deep sleep, a carb +fat snack before bed (like a bit of pure ice cream) helps the nocturnal blood sugar crash that fragments sleep in the first place. The cortisol awakening response- the sharp morning spike that’s supposed to mobilize energy and sharpen alertness- only fires correctly when the circadian clock is properly set, which is why consistency matters more than any single night of perfect sleep. if you struggle with turning off thoughts, lie with your legs up on the wall in bed and let them pass before getting under the covers. Weird, but it works.

3. Remove PUFAs and Lower Gut Endotoxin

Polyunsaturated fats are one of the most metabolic impairing substances that prevent you from producing ATP efficiently. On the other hand, endotoxin leaks into circulation and keeps the immune system and HPA axis on permanent alert, as if the body is fighting a chronic low-grade infection that never resolves.

PUFAs impair the very membrane that produces cellular charge, and endotoxin activates the stress response at its biological source. Both keep cortisol elevated regardless of what you do psychologically, and both take time to clear- months for PUFAs to leave tissue membranes, weeks to months for gut barrier integrity to restore. But the intervention starts working from day one.

Solution: Remove seed oils, processed food as the foundation. Add well-cooked root vegetables, oat bran or acacia fiber. Try activated charcoal or Enterosgel to bind endotoxin, and consider coconut oil + vitamin E if coming from a high PUFA diet. Raw carrots, white button mushrooms, and bamboo shoots bind both endotoxin and excess estrogen in the intestines, keeping them from recirculating. Enterosgel was the most powerful single intervention for me last year- within seven days I had clearer vision, perfect digestion, and a palpable sense of relief from stress reduction that was borderline euphoric and still hasn’t left months later.

4. Restore Thyroid Function

T3 is the core to increasing quality of life… and chronic stress suppresses it first and restores it last- making it the critical bottleneck in recovery. Low T3 means low cellular charge, and low charge reads as danger to the nervous system, which keeps the HPA axis firing even when external stressors are gone.

Every cell’s capacity to produce ATP and generate the coherent electromagnetic signal that the nervous system reads as “safe” depends on adequate tissue T3. Without it, the entire chain from metabolism to consciousness runs at reduced capacity no matter how well you eat or sleep.

Solution: Track your waking oral temperature (targeting 97.8–98.2°F) and resting pulse (targeting 60–85 bpm) daily, as these are real-time readouts of tissue thyroid activity that are more reliable than serum TSH in a chronically stressed individual. Support T4-to-T3 conversion naturally by ensuring adequate carbohydrate intake, removing PUFAs from the diet, and adding ensuring micronutrient & calorie demands are met. Aspirin was a powerful intervention for me to reliably increase warmth, uncoupling and cellular T3- make sure to use with vitamin K. If the need for using thyroid hormone is warranted, please work with a practitioner who understands thyroid and will go off symptoms instead of TSH alone.

Read my full guide here to learn more about restoring thyroid function and T3.

5. Mineral Repletion

The chronically stressed body depletes specific minerals at an accelerated rate, and those depletions create their own stress signals- a depleted cell cannot produce GABA, cannot run the deiodinase reactions that convert T4 to T3, and cannot properly regulate the glucocorticoid receptor that’s supposed to shut the stress loop off.

Think of minerals as the electrical substrate of the entire system. Magnesium stabilizes ATP (which exists in the body as Mg-ATP), maintains the negativity of the cell membrane potential, and serves as the precursor for GABA, the neurotransmitter that keeps the nervous system’s inhibitory tone intact. Without adequate minerals, the cell can’t hold charge, and without charge, everything above it stays disorganized.

Solution: Magnesium is a high-yield mineral intervention for most stressed individuals- and most people in this state burn through magnesium quickly or can’t hold onto it. SALT TO TASTE and don’t over hydrate to where you’re peeing clear. Get potassium + vitamin C from fruits, OJ, coconut water, potatoes. Keep zinc and copper in balance- eat oysters. Consider taurine at 1–2 grams (or eat shellfish) for its specific dampening effect on the hypothalamic CRH neurons that initiate the entire stress cascade- it’s an awesome amino acid for modulating the stress response.

6. Morning Sunlight and Circadian Anchoring

Getting sunlight is CRITICAL TO RECOVER. This is one source of energy (like food, air, water, prana) that must be met. Without sunlight, cortisol timing, emotions, metabolism, electricity charge of your body all take a massive hit. Morning sunlight is key- but getting outside itself is therapeutic.

Morning light resets the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the master clock that programs the entire hormonal day. Beyond circadian signaling, near-infrared light from the sun directly charges the mitochondria- the same enzyme at the terminal end of the electron transport chain that produces ATP. Sunlight is a direct electrical input to the system, not just a vitamin D source.

Solution: Get twenty to thirty minutes of direct sunlight daily- ideally with no sunglasses, prescription glasses and skin exposed. Morning if possible is the best time. Window glass blocks the UV wavelengths that drive vitamin D synthesis, so you need to actually get outside. Pair this with consistent meal timing to reinforce the peripheral circadian clocks in the liver and gut that communicate back to the master clock, and cut blue light after sunset to protect the melatonin synthesis that programs the evening cortisol decline. This single intervention, done consistently, fixes sleep quality, mood stability, and stress response simultaneously.

7. Breathing To Restore CO2 Levels

CO2 is basic stress relief. In chronic stress, the autonomic nervous system is locked in sympathetic overdrive and the parasympathetic brake can’t engage- meaning the body is perpetually braced for threat even during moments that should feel safe and restful. You’ll notice this as taking a lot of sighs often, struggle holding your breath, etc.

Without enough CO2, oxygen cannot get delivered effectively throughout your system. This is known as the Bohr Effect. And without CO2, metabolism takes a hit and stress hormones take over. Ideally, you slow breathing down to where you are breathing less per minute (like 5-6) to keep CO2 and energy production up. That breathing rate matches the baroreflex resonance frequency, which drives coherence. If you are in this state- the nervous system is in a state of safety, engagement, connection and a relaxed attention.

Solution: First off- nose breath. Next, slow it all down. Slow down your respiration rate. Buteyko style breathing is ideal for this. You can practice that directly, or eat enough carbs for CO2 which naturally gets you there. In times of intense stress, anxiety, panic- bag breathing is effective. If you’re really struggling and have the time & resources- go spend some time at altitude, like high mountains. Resets the baseline as your body adjusts to it. I theorize this mechanism is why the Yogic masters retreated to the Himalayas… it puts the body into an ideal state of oxidative metabolism.

This is where the second path enters. Everything above built the metabolic foundation. Now we build on top of it.

8. Elevated Emotional States Daily

Chronic stress locks the emotional field in a state of contraction where dopamine receptors are downregulated, the reward circuit is suppressed, and elevated emotional states feel genuinely inaccessible- not because you’re doing something wrong, but because the neurochemistry that produces them has been depleted.

This intervention works the chain from the top down. In research from HeartMath Institute, felt, embodied gratitude- not the cognitive idea of gratitude but the actual physical sensation of it, the warmth in the chest, the softening of the throat, the expansion behind the sternum- produces measurable cortisol reduction, HRV improvement, and immune upregulation within minutes. The body’s neurochemical response to an internally generated emotion is identical to its response to a real external event that produced the same feeling, which means you can shift the field deliberately once the metabolic foundation is in place to support it. Understanding this, and becoming really, really good at changing your emotional states is the FASTEST way to come out of it. Within seconds of feeling genuine, heart open love- your body cannot feel stress anymore. This is the greatest feeling you will ever experience, and it is an unlimited source of high energy to tap into.

Solution: Take a minute to truly feel a sense of appreciation, love, or awe by choosing a specific memory or imagined future that reliably generates the physical sensation in your body, then hold that sensation as the breathing continues. FEEL IT. Don’t think it at all. Sense it and feel it. Bring that feeling, focus its energy around your chest, and radiate that feeling around your body. This charges the massive field of energy around your heart, and gives energy availability back to you immediately. Practiced daily, this progressively resensitizes dopamine receptors, rebuilds the prefrontal brake on the amygdala, and shifts the baseline emotional state from contracted and defended to open and resourced- the high energy state- replacing the downward spiral with an upward one where small consistent inputs compound over time. So in essence.. it’s all about your vibrations.

9. Earthing and Physical Touch

Our life has disconnected the body from two of its most fundamental regulatory inputs: the earth’s surface charge and the electromagnetic field of other human beings. Disconnection from the earth removes an abundance of free electrons the body was designed to interface with, and social isolation removes the oxytocin signaling that directly suppresses the stress cascade at its most upstream point.

The earth is a limitless electron donor, and those free electrons quench free radicals, reduce blood viscosity, and measurably normalize the cortisol diurnal rhythm when the body is in direct contact with the ground. Physical touch triggers oxytocin release, which acts on the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus to suppress CRH release- the most upstream point in the entire HPA cascade and the most direct molecular brake on the stress axis available to you.

Solution: Spend ten to thirty minutes daily in bare-skin contact with the earth, whether that’s walking barefoot on grass, sitting on the ground, or using a grounding mat during sleep for the most dramatic overnight effects. It is so key to ground yourself daily if around a lot of technology (hint; you always are). Hold the people you love longer and more often. Skin to skin contact with your lover is about as good as it gets metabolically. If you don’t have a lover… get a dog. Genuine human connection isn’t a lifestyle preference, it’s a biological requirement, and the nervous system expects the electromagnetic input of other humans as a regulatory signal that nothing internal can fully substitute for.

10. Reduce Allostatic Load Deliberately

Everything you do or have ever done leaves an energetic signature on your metabolism. Unresolved psychological stressors keep the HPA axis firing even when the biology underneath has been fully restored, because the threats are real- they’re just social and psychological rather than physical, and the nervous system doesn’t distinguish between the two.

Allostatic load is simply the cumulative burden of everything the system is carrying simultaneously- the relationship conflict, the financial anxiety, the overcommitment, the digital noise, the unresolved conversations, the chronic low-grade threat of an overloaded life. No amount of metabolic optimization or coherence practice can fully overcome a stressor load that is genuinely too high, because the HPA axis will keep firing as long as the load demands it.

Solution: Take an honest inventory of what you’re carrying and begin actively reducing the load by saying no more than feels comfortable, delegating more than feels safe, and simplifying more than feels acceptable, treating recovery time as a biological necessity rather than a reward for productivity. The conversation you’ve been avoiding, the decision you keep postponing, the relationship truth you won’t speak- each one is a day cortisol stays up 24/7 in the background, and the anticipation is always worse than the thing itself. One hard conversation can drop cortisol more than a month of supplements. Face the thing, reduce the load, and call your energy back to you.

11. Change Your Environment

Your nervous system doesn’t just respond to what’s happening inside you. It’s constantly mapping the external environment and deciding whether it’s safe or threatening. And it does this below conscious awareness, through neuroception. The sounds, the lighting, the people, the physical space you inhabit every day- your body is reading all of it and adjusting its stress chemistry accordingly.

This is why you can do everything else on this list and still feel stuck if you’re living in the same environment that programmed the stress response in the first place. The apartment where the relationship fell apart. The office where you learned to stay hypervigilant. The city that never lets your nervous system settle. The same rooms, the same commute, the same faces associated with the same survival patterns- your brain has mapped threat onto those cues, and every time you encounter them, the HPA axis gets a nudge back toward activation. You don’t even notice it because it feels like normal.

The inverse is equally powerful. Novel environments force the nervous system out of pattern recognition and into present-moment processing. Novel input requires attention, and attention anchors you in the now- which is the opposite of the rumination loop that chronic stress runs on. This is why travel feels so restorative even before you’ve done anything relaxing. It’s why a change of scenery can shift your mood in hours when weeks of effort at home couldn’t. The nervous system has no stored threat map in the brain for the new place, so it defaults to openness rather than defense.

Solution: Audit the environments you spend the most time in and ask honestly whether they support the version of you that you’re building or reinforce the one you’re leaving behind. This might mean rearranging a room, spending more time in nature, changing where you work, or making a bigger move you’ve been postponing. It doesn’t have to be dramatic- even small shifts in your daily sensory environment send new signals. But don’t underestimate the power of a full reset. Sometimes the most efficient intervention is removing yourself from the context that keeps cueing the old pattern and placing yourself in one that has no history with your stress. Your nervous system will reorganize around whatever environment you give it. Make sure that environment matches where you’re going, not where you’ve been.

What Healing Actually Feels Like

I want to end by naming it what the goal is here, because this isn’t a distant aspiration and a coherent system is closer than you think. And I know because I live in it now most days- after years of not knowing it was possible.

Waking up with genuine energy before the alarm. Not anxious energy, but warm, calm, ready energy. Perceiving the world with clarity and color- sunlight actually looks different, music actually sounds different, food actually tastes different. Feeling warmth and love as a resting state rather than a peak experience- being a loving person is your baseline again. Thinking with fluidity and creativity instead of closed down thinking and rigidity. Having more capacity for other people because you’re not depleting yourself just to function.

The emotional range comes back. Laughter that starts in the belly. Eyes that well up at beauty. The ability to sit in a room and actually be in the room. The capacity to hold someone you love without your mind already spinning toward the next task.

Presence, real presence- comes as a default rather than something you chase through a meditation app.

The pattern here is simple. You are learning how to become a human being again and embracing your true nature.

The High Energy Approach

These eleven interventions work. But if you need help applying this with tactical precision from someone who understands both paths...

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in. It is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Do your own research, work with someone qualified, and don’t outsource your health decisions to anyone- including me.

Dieting is a multi-billion dollar industry, often preying on human behavior to get rapid, easier results in a short amount of time.

This has led to the rise of influencer trends, supplement lines and other B.S. information that I am fed up with- and i’m sure you are too.

So I wanted to make things clear for you. To cut through all the crap diets and rank them based on my work as a metabolic health coach with select criteria. Here’s what I scored every diet on- and why these six matter more than anything else:

Metabolic Impact — Does this diet support or suppress your body’s ability to produce energy at the cellular level? Your metabolic rate isn’t just about calories, it’s driven by thyroid function (specifically T3 levels), mitochondrial efficiency, and whether your body is running on clean fuel or stress hormones. A diet that drops your T3 and raises your reverse T3 is slowing you down, no matter what the scale says. Diets that provide adequate carbohydrates, quality protein, and saturated fats while avoiding PUFAs score highest here. Diets that rely on caloric restriction, chronic ketosis, or gluconeogenesis score lowest- because they trade metabolic output for short-term weight loss.

Longevity — Will this diet help you live longer and healthier- or just thinner and weaker? Muscle mass is the single strongest predictor of all-cause mortality in aging populations. That means any diet that wastes muscle (juice cleanses, fruitarian, aggressive caloric restriction) is actively shortening your healthspan. Beyond muscle, I’m looking at: does this diet reduce chronic inflammation? Does it protect against cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, and metabolic syndrome? Does it maintain bone density and hormonal function into your 60s, 70s, 80s? The longest-lived populations on earth (Sardinia, Okinawa, Ikaria) eat diets rich in whole foods, quality animal protein, seafood, fruit, and fermented dairy…. not protein bars and diet shakes.

Body Composition — Not just “did you lose weight”, but what KIND of weight? A diet that drops 20 lbs but 8 of those pounds are muscle hasn’t improved your body composition. It’s made you a smaller, softer, slower-metabolizing version of the same problem. Real body composition improvement means holding onto (or building) lean tissue while losing body fat. That requires adequate protein (at minimum 0.6g per pound, ideally 0.8g), sufficient carbohydrates to fuel training and replenish glycogen, and a hormonal environment that favors anabolism over catabolism. If your diet has you losing weight but your arms are shrinking and you can’t recover from workouts… that’s not fat loss.

Sustainability — Can you actually do this for YEARS? Not 30 days. Not 12 weeks. Because the research is unambiguous: dietary adherence is the single strongest predictor of long-term outcomes. The “perfect” diet you abandon after 8 weeks loses to the “good” diet you follow for a decade. Every time. I’m evaluating whether a real human with a job, a family, social obligations, and occasional stress can follow this way of eating without food ruling their life, without social isolation, and without developing an unhealthy relationship with food. If it requires you to weigh every gram, avoid restaurants, or explain your diet to everyone at the table- sustainability takes a hit.

Gut Health — Your gut is more than just digestion. It’s the center for immune function, neurotransmitter production, and systemic inflammation. I’m looking at: does this diet promote microbial diversity or destroy it? Does it increase or decrease intestinal permeability (leaky gut)? Does it raise or lower endotoxin- the bacterial byproduct that drives systemic inflammation when it crosses the gut barrier? Diets high in emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners, and seed oils wreck the gut lining. Diets low in all fiber starve beneficial bacteria. Diets with fermented foods, bone broth, adequate fiber from fruit and cooked vegetables, and gelatin/collagen support it.

Stress Load — Every diet creates a hormonal environment. The question is whether that environment favors recovery and growth- or survival and breakdown. Cortisol, adrenaline, and glucagon are stress hormones. They’re essential in acute situations, but chronic elevation from caloric restriction, carbohydrate deprivation, or extended fasting drives muscle catabolism, suppresses thyroid output, disrupts sleep, increases visceral fat storage, and accelerates aging at the cellular level. A diet that keeps your blood sugar stable, your liver glycogen healthy, and your stress hormones low creates the conditions for everything else to work- fat loss, muscle gain, hormone production, cognitive function, sleep quality. A diet that runs you on cortisol and adrenaline might make you lean for a while, but you’ll pay for it in the long term.

I run my analysis through a bioenergetic lens that sees eating as a way to support energy production. There is no clearer, unbiased approach than this.

Next, I analyze based on the medical literature. Sometimes theory and application diverge. The literature shows that diets rich in fruits, vegetables, quality fish, and some meat consistently produce the best outcomes across every metric- cardiovascular health, cancer prevention, cognitive preservation, metabolic function, and all-cause mortality. Diets that align with this evidence base, while also supporting metabolic rate and hormonal health, land at the top.

The diets at the bottom of this list fail on most or all six criteria. The diets at the top succeed on most or all six. And the ones in the middle? They get some things right and some things dangerously wrong… which is why they’re the most important ones to understand.

Let’s get into the rankings and see what your favorite diet is graded.

For every diet on this list, I've included what I'd personally change to make it work better. Because most diets aren't completely broken- they're just incomplete. The 'What I'd Add' section is where the coaching happens.

F-TIER

21. Standard American Diet (SAD)

Grade: F

You know this had to be last. This way of eating has produced the sickest population EVER, with 67.9% of Americans overweight, heart disease rampant and 90% not meeting nutritional requirements for fruits/vegetables.

Hyper-processed food, seed oils, refined sugar, minimal produce, enormous portions make this diet up. This is the control group for metabolic issues.

Pros:

• Convenient and cheap

• Socially acceptable

• That’s it.

Cons:

• Primary driver of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome

• Dominated by seed oils (soybean, canola, corn) driving a record high omega 6 to omega 3 ratio that drives inflammation and energy issues

• Hyper-palatable foods override satiety signals, leading to excess calorie intakes

• Literally zero micronutrient density

• Destroys gut health through emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners, additives, heavy metals… the list goes on

• Suppresses thyroid function through chronic inflammation and PUFA overload

• The baseline against which every other diet improves

What I’d Add: Everything. This is not how any human should eat. Replace high omega 6 fats with omega 3 & saturated. Eat actual protein, not deep fried chicken, beef, fish. Add many more fruits and vegetables. Please haha. Cook at home. The bar is so low that virtually any intentional dietary change is an improvement (which is why you see any popular fads hailed as their savior coming off this way of eating.)

E-TIER

20. Fruitarian

Grade: E

80% or more of calories from raw fruit. Minimal fat, minimal protein, minimal everything except fructose lmao.

Pros:

• Fruit is rich in vitamins, minerals, and polyphenols

• Metabolism will feel humming and you feel “light”

• Easy to digest in the short term

• Hydrating

Cons:

• Catastrophically low in protein. Muscle wasting is inevitable

• Missing virtually every B vitamin, iron, zinc, and essential fatty acid

• Massive fructose load without adequate protein or fat creates metabolic dysfunction

• Zero complete protein sources

• Will destroy dental health from chronic acid and sugar exposure

• Not sustainable for even basic physiological function long-term

What I’d Add: This shouldn’t even be considered a diet. Add animal protein, eggs, dairy, root vegetables, and cooked foods. Fruit is wonderful as part of a balanced diet. As the entire diet, it’s a recipe for malnutrition, and why you see lot’s of issues with people who adopt this long term (and it’s not sustainable!) I sometimes advocate for a fruit until noon approach, which can be an option if you want some of the amazing metabolism boosting effects of fruit. So, if you want the light feeling benefit, eat fruit until noon- then continue eating a normal well rounded diet.

19. Atkins

Grade: E

The original low-carb diet from Dr. Atkins. Phases from very low carb to gradual reintroduction. Popularized the idea that carbs are the enemy and any fat is free to eat. But did you know there was a leak after his death reporting a multitude of cardiovascular and heart conditions? And that he weighed 258lbs with a history of cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, and hypertension? Makes you think.

Pros:

• Eliminates refined carbohydrates and processed junk in early phases

• High protein intake supports satiety

• Can produce rapid initial weight loss

• Paved the way for understanding insulin’s role in fat storage

Cons:

• Severe carbohydrate restriction suppresses thyroid function

• High fat emphasis without quality distinctions (seed oils, processed meats encouraged)

• The phased reintroduction is arbitrary and poorly designed

• Most people either stall in the restrictive phase or regain everything when carbs return

• Branded Atkins products (bars, shakes) are absolutely junk.

What I’d Add: Skip the phases. Run an optimized keto diet (keep scrolling for this) instead if you want low carb dieting. Stick to high saturated fats and stay on top of your blood work. If T3 is reducing- you may want to stop and reintroduce carbs to at least 150g. Atkins got the “cut processed carbs” part right… but missed on a lot of other things.

18. Juice Cleanse / Detox

Grade: E

Consuming only fruit and vegetable juices for days or weeks. Your liver already detoxifies your body… it doesn’t need a juice cleanse to do its job.

Pros:

• Increased vitamin and mineral intake from produce

• Short-term calorie reduction if that’s the goal

• Can taste pretty good

Cons:

• Zero protein. Muscle catabolism begins within days

• Pure sugar without fiber creates a rollercoaster effect

• “Detox” is a marketing term. Not a legit thing

• Crushes metabolic rate from severe caloric restriction

• The weight you lose is water and muscle. Not fat only.

What I’d Add: Stop cleansing unless you have a legit medical condition. Detox is a fad and if people use this term in their marketing… run away. Eat whole fruits and vegetables instead of juicing them. Add protein to every meal. Your liver and kidneys handle detoxification 24/7- just give it the nutrients to do it’s job and maintain a humming metabolism. The only case for something like this is for very specific conditions… not a general detox because you ate too much last week.

D-TIER

17. Weight Watchers, Noom & Optavia

Grade: D- / D- / D- Yes, I’m bundling them.

Three brands, same approach: restrict calories, ignore food quality, build dependency. Weight Watchers assigns weird points. Noom color-codes foods by calorie density (salmon is “red,” rice cakes are “green”…) Optavia sells you ultra-processed “fuelings” at 800 calories a day while your MLM “coach” profits from your order. This is low calorie dieting marketed well… and i’ve seen people regain every single pound lost- and more!

Pros:

• Create initial calorie awareness and structure

• Weight Watchers and Noom offer community or behavioral components

• Will produce short-term weight loss

• Simple to follow if you don’t ask questions

Cons:

• All three incentivize low-calorie, low-fat processed diet foods over nutrient-dense whole foods

• Chronic calorie restriction tanks your metabolic rate and thyroid function

• None address food quality, hormonal health, or what your body actually needs to function

• High recidivism. Most people regain the weight and come back, which is the business model

• Optavia’s “fuelings” are soy protein isolate, maltodextrin, and artificial flavors masquerading as meals. This disgusts me.

• Noom’s “psychology-based coaching” is mostly automated chatbots.

• You learn to count points or follow colors, not how to eat.

What I’d Add: If you want to track with a system, use Cronometer. If you want accountability, HIRE A GOOD COACH. I cannot preach that enough. A good coach will change your life. You will reach your goals faster and forever. Then learn the basics instead: eat quality protein at every meal, fill your plate with fruit and vegetables, choose real fats, and eat enough to actually support your metabolism. Put simply, if a diet comes in a package… it’s not sustainable.

16. Keto

Grade: D+

High fat, very low carb, moderate protein. Forces the body into ketosis for fuel. Very effective for specific medical conditions, but damn have I seen some tough rebounds in fat gain & metabolism from this approach. Sadly, there’s been many influencers with 6-packs who preach this, yet they don’t even follow it strictly themselves like they try and get you to do.

Pros:

• Therapeutic value for epilepsy and neurological conditions

• Can produce rapid initial weight loss (mostly water and glycogen)

• Reduces appetite in the short term

• May benefit severely insulin-resistant individuals temporarily; leading to major weight loss

Cons:

• Chronically suppresses thyroid function. T3 drops, reverse T3 rises.

• Elevates cortisol and adrenaline to maintain blood sugar via gluconeogenesis

• High PUFA intake is common in general population (nuts, seeds, seed oils in fake marketed “keto” & “low-carb” products)

• Destroys gut microbial diversity due to near-zero fiber

• Rough for athletic performance and muscle glycogen

• Long-term adherence is poor. Most people regain weight when eating normally again.

What I’d Add: If you’re using keto therapeutically for a specific condition, work with a practitioner who knows their stuff. It can change your life done correctly. But for everyone else- i’d recommend some carb cycling. Add the right carbohydrates back every 4-7 days or so around 300-500g (not a cheat meal- i’m talking white rice or fruits). Improve fat oxidation with 2-4g L-carnitine, B2, ALA & electrolytes. If body temperature or pulse rate drops- add carbs to 150g minimum and increase calories until recovered- go back in. This maintains insulin sensitivity. Stick to quality saturated fats, not anything with Atkins branding. You’ll feel better and perform better while preventing that gnarly rebound from happening.

15. Vegan

Grade: D+

No animal products whatsoever. While the ethical motivation is understandable, the nutritional reality is pretty bad without strategy and supplementation. There are some outliers (as with any diet) but i’ve seen some people wrecked overtime here. For the vast majority of the population, getting them to eat just one vegetable is hard enough.

Pros:

• High fruit and vegetable intake

• Can be rich in fiber and certain phytonutrients

• Eliminates processed meat

• Environmental and ethical motivations provide adherence for some

Cons:

• Deficient in B12, heme iron, zinc, complete protein, retinol, K2, and creatine

• Soy and grain reliance often suppresses thyroid function

• Protein quality is poor. Plant proteins lack adequate leucine and essential amino acid profiles

• Processed vegan alternatives (Beyond Burgers, vegan cheese) are crap. Absolute crap.

• Muscle wasting and hormonal disruption are common long-term

• Requires extensive supplementation to approach nutritional adequacy

• Anti-nutrient load (phytates, oxalates, lectins) reduces mineral absorption

What I’d Add: At minimum- eggs, fish, and dairy- which makes it vegetarian, not vegan. You can make that work really well energetically. But if staying strictly vegan, supplement B12, creatine, zinc, and vitamin D. Legumes and quinoa have better amino acid profiles- go for those. Almonds, macadamia & brazil nuts over walnuts and other high PUFA nuts. Ensure carbohydrates are high for + nitrogen balance and preventing muscle wasting. But understand that this approach doesn’t optimize for energy in the body… and one day you may pay for it.

14. Alkaline Diet

Grade: D

I love you Tony Robbins. But why do you need to keep preaching this man? This diet is based on the idea that certain foods make your blood “acidic” and cause disease. Eat alkaline-forming foods (fruits, vegetables) and avoid acid-forming foods (meat, dairy, grains). This isn’t backed by the literature.

Pros:

• Encourages high fruit and vegetable intake

• Eliminates processed foods and refined sugar

• Can accidentally produce decent nutritional outcomes from the plant emphasis

Cons:

• The entire premise is scientifically false. Your blood pH is tightly regulated regardless of diet

• Eliminates meat and dairy unnecessarily, creating protein and nutrient gaps

• Ignores that stomach acid is essential for digestion and nutrient absorption

• CO2 (the “acid” your body produces from metabolism) is actually a sign of healthy oxidative metabolism.

• From a bioenergetic perspective, trying to “alkalize” the body works against efficient energy production.

What I’d Add: Keep the fruits and vegetables. Discard the pH pseudoscience entirely. Add quality animal protein, dairy, and eggs back in- then keep the fruit and vegetable base. A diet rich in produce, protein, and whole foods doesn’t need a pH justification- it will simply work without some crazy idea about acid.

(blood pH is maintained between 7.35–7.45 regardless of what you eat. Your kidneys and lungs regulate this in real time. Eating a lemon doesn’t make your blood alkaline. If your blood pH actually changed from food, you’d be in the emergency room.)

C-TIER

13. Whole30

Grade: C+

A 30-day elimination protocol. No grains, dairy, legumes, sugar, or alcohol. Useful as a diagnostic tool, but pretty tough as a long term diet.

Pros:

• Excellent for identifying food sensitivities

• Forces elimination of processed food

• Short-term structure can build awareness and better habits

• Can reduce inflammation and improve energy in the short term

Cons:

• Too restrictive to sustain beyond 30 days.

• Eliminates dairy and many carbohydrate sources unnecessarily.

• Can create fear-based relationships with food.

• No calorie or macronutrient guidance- you can overeat “Whole30 approved” foods very easily. Ask me how I gained 7lbs eating this way haha.

• Doesn’t address underlying metabolic issues

What I’d Add: Use it as a diagnostic tool only. 30 days, then systematically reintroduce foods. After the reset, build a sustainable pro-metabolic or animal based framework (coming later) with the foods your body tolerates best- and not a strict regimen. If you can eat this long term- i’d bump up the grade, but many fall over do to the 30 day reset programming. Don’t think in 30 days… but think in 30 years of a diet.

12. Carnivore

Grade: C

Carnivore can be one of the most powerful therapeutic tools in nutrition. People with severe autoimmune conditions, demolished guts, and years of failed dietary experiments have found genuine relief here. That matters. But a great elimination protocol and a great long-term diet are two different things… which is why it’s ranked here.

Pros:

• Possibly the most effective elimination diet available for autoimmune and gut conditions

• High protein and nutrient density from animal foods

• Removes every plant-based gut irritant in one move

• Can produce dramatic short-term improvements in inflammation, skin, digestion, and energy

• Simplicity makes compliance effortless

• High protein makes body composition improve with proper training

Cons:

• Zero carbohydrate intake suppresses T3 and raises cortisol over time- your body runs on stress hormones to maintain blood sugar

• No fiber starves beneficial gut bacteria and reduces microbial diversity long-term

• Long-term cardiovascular and longevity data doesn’t exist yet (your ancestors don’t count. stop it.)

• Socially isolating and difficult to maintain for years

• Muscle glycogen depletion can tank training performance

• Relies on gluconeogenesis

What I’d Add: Add fruit. That’s it. Fruit, honey, and root vegetables. Do it slowly as glucose metabolism is not primed, give it a few weeks. Add B1 + B3. If wanting low carb- follow the optimized keto approach with this as outlined earlier. You keep every benefit of high-quality animal protein and organ meats while giving your thyroid the carbohydrates it needs and your gut the fuel it’s missing. This is essentially the animal-based diet (which ranks much higher) and the transition is painless. Most of my clients who come from carnivore make this exact move, and every single one of them feels better for it. Carnivore is powerful to start, but know when to transition before it’s too late. Even CarnivoreMD himself will tell you this is the move.

11. Vegetarian

Grade: C

No meat or fish, but includes dairy and eggs. Can be nutritionally adequate with careful planning, but most vegetarians eat a diet heavy in grains, soy, and processed meat substitutes.

Pros:

• High fruit and vegetable intake when done well

• Dairy and eggs provide complete protein and fat-soluble vitamins

• Can include nutrient-dense foods like cheese, yogurt, and whole eggs

• More sustainable than vegan from a nutrient adequacy standpoint

Cons:

• Missing the most bioavailable sources of iron, zinc, B12, and creatine- the stuff your muscles and brain love

• Soy and grain reliance can suppress thyroid and create some gut issues

• Processed vegetarian products (fake meats, textured soy protein) are not acceptable substitutes.

• Requires a pharmacy’s worth of supplements to avoid deficiencies

What I’d Add: If you’re staying vegetarian, prioritize eggs (3–6 daily), full-fat dairy, and legumes as your protein base. Eat high carbohydrate, at least a 2:1 ratio or 3:1 ratio to protein to favor reduced metabolic stress and + nitrogen balance. Supplement B12, vit D, creatine, and some iron source if deficient. I’d go heavy on dairy or calcium or eggshell calcium to support calcium:phosphorus ratio. Add collagen or gelatin in drinks. Have some fish. Cook vegetables. If you do this- you can absolutely make vegetarian work as an optimal eating plan as long as you watch your labs and metabolism. I dock this lower do the the gut, nutrient deficient and oxalate issues that can arise.

10. Sattvic / Yogi

Grade: C+

I love this way of eating- but with some key changes. A spiritual eating practice from Ayurvedic tradition- vegetarian, no onion, no garlic, no stimulants. Emphasizes “pure” foods that promote clarity and calmness. I’d say good digestion is what makes this feel great, leading to a low endotoxin load. It works well- but there’s some gaps.

Pros:

• Emphasizes fresh, whole, unprocessed foods

• Mindful eating approach can improve digestion

• High in fruits, vegetables, and some dairy

• Spiritual framework provides meaning and discipline

• Food choice promotes low endotoxin burden

Cons:

• Severe protein deficiency- no meat, fish, eggs in strict practice

• Eliminates onion and garlic, which can be powerful additions

• Nutritional decisions based on spiritual classification rather than individual physiology

• Very low in bioavailable iron, zinc, B12, creatine, and complete protein

• Heavy on grains and legumes, which can be problematic

• Caloric insufficiency is common pattern

What I’d Add: Add eggs and fish. Oysters would be a great addition. Supplement B12, zinc and creatine. Have a lot of milk, fruit and ghee. Ensure you’re pooping 1-3 times a day, no gas or bloating as that facilities a calmer mind. Funny how this diet is close to purist Peating… milk, OJ, carrots. With those additions above, this is an ideal Cosmic Diet that can last for years without issues. I think if spiritual connection was your main priority, there’s many ways this diet orders the body to be receptive to that. I often find when I am meditating 2 hours a day, this way of eating helps with achieving the calm “no mind” state in periods of silence. The Yogi’s adapted to this way of eating for a reason.

9. IIFYM / Flexible Dieting

Grade: C+

“If It Fits Your Macros” - hit your protein, carb, and fat targets, and food quality doesn’t matter. A Pop-Tart is the same as sweet potatoes if the macros match.

Pros:

• Flexible and sustainable for adherence

• Teaches macro awareness and portion control

• No food is “off limits,” which reduces binge-restrict cycling

• Can produce solid body composition results when protein is high

Cons:

• Completely ignores food quality and micronutrient density

• A diet of protein powder, Pop-Tarts, and ice cream “hits macros” but destroys gut health… again ask me how I know!!

• Doesn’t account for PUFA intake, seed oils, or inflammatory foods

• No framework for thyroid support, hormonal health, or metabolic optimization

• Teaches people that CICO is the only thing that matters- which is a mistake

What I’d Add: Keep the macro tracking framework but add a food quality floor: 80% of intake from whole foods- quality animal protein, fruit, root vegetables, dairy, eggs. Use the remaining 20% for flexibility. Macros matter, but what you fill them with matters more. Do keep in mind that MOST benefits in health come from a controlled calorie intake. Weight loss alone changes lives- and that’s what this can do.

8. Intermittent Fasting

Grade: C

Compressing your eating window (16:8, OMAD, etc.) has become one of the most popular dietary strategies. Every longevity guru, influencer and shredded person with a 6 pack is preaching this. The benefits are real but overstated, and the costs are under-discussed.

Pros:

• Can improve insulin sensitivity in the short term.

• Simplifies meal planning and reduces decision fatigue. Probably the biggest pro right here.

• Some evidence for autophagy and cellular cleanup.

• May benefit metabolically unhealthy, overfat individuals initially.

Cons:

• Chronically elevates cortisol and adrenaline during fasting periods.

• Suppresses thyroid function (T3 drops, reverse T3 rises) with prolonged use.

• Promotes muscle loss when protein timing is compressed.

• Can trigger or worsen disordered eating patterns. This is not talked about enough.

• Women tend to respond worse hormonally than men.

• The “metabolic benefits” largely disappear when you control for total calorie intake.

What I’d Add: If you’ve dieted a lot in your life- just don’t. There are better ways. If you’re going to time-restrict, keep the window around 12 hours. like 7pm-7am. Front-load calories and protein early in the day. The circadian rhythm research supports eating earlier, not later- which is the opposite of how most people practice IF. But honestly, for most people, eating 3–4 meals across the day with stable blood sugar is metabolically superior. I put fasting higher do to keeping calorie intake under control- and for most people, that’s what they need. You can fast longer if you want for calorie control- but other than that, there’s not much magic to it.

B-TIER

7. Traditional Bodybuilding

Grade: B-

Chicken, rice, broccoli, eggs, oats, steak. The old-school approach works for body composition and has decades of anecdotal evidence behind it. And trust me, if bodybuilders found a better way of eating for muscle gain and fat loss- they would’ve found it already with how much they experiment. This ranks here due to the effects on muscle mass- one of the most important markers of longevity. This delivers.

Pros:

• Proven for building and maintaining muscle

• High protein + carb intake supports metabolic rate

• Structured and easy to follow

• Meal prep friendly and socially understood

Cons:

• Chronically bland and monotonous- sustainability suffers

• Over-reliance on chicken breast and tilapia (low nutrient density)

• Typically ignores organ meats, shellfish, and micronutrient density

• Often includes seed oils and processed protein supplements

• Can become orthorexic in execution

What I’d Add: Replace chicken breast dominance with a rotation of beef, lamb, eggs, and fish. Less chicken breast + more collagen to balance tryptophan content. Add organ meats, shellfish, and a wider variety of fruits and cooked vegetables. Swap seed oils for saturated fats. Avoid heavy protein bars & protein shakes! Ditch the “clean eating” rigidity and focus on nutrient density. If that’s done- this diet will get you lean, muscular and hormonally healthy. If using this for a hard cut or prep for some event, ensure when you come out you reverse slowly + allow metabolism to catch back up, usually indicated by T3 + rT3 levels so you don’t gain excess weight when hunger goes wild.

6. Paleo

Grade: B

Eat like your ancestors: meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds. Eliminate grains, legumes, dairy, and processed foods. The ancestral framework is sound, even if the historical accuracy is debatable.

Pros:

• Eliminates processed foods, seed oils, and refined sugar

• High in nutrient-dense whole foods

• Encourages quality animal protein and wild-caught fish

• Good vegetable and fruit intake

• Reduced gut irritants for many people

Cons:

• Eliminates dairy unnecessarily for many people (dairy is highly nutritious when tolerated)

• Nut and seed emphasis can increase PUFA intake significantly

• Can be low-carb by default, which suppresses thyroid over time

• “Paleo” snack foods and treats have become their own junk food category

• Expensive and socially limiting

What I’d Add: Reintroduce quality dairy if tolerated (raw milk, aged cheese, yogurt). Some people would do great with A2 on this. Reduce nut and seed consumption. Increase fruit and starchy carbohydrate intake to support metabolic rate. Add shellfish and organ meats. Paleo’s elimination framework is useful, but don’t just throw out nutritious foods for ideological reasons.

5. DASH

Grade: B+

Designed to lower blood pressure, DASH emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and low-sodium foods. Solid nutritional foundation with good evidence.

Pros:

• Strong evidence for cardiovascular health and blood pressure reduction

• Encourages high fruit and vegetable intake

• Includes lean protein and low-fat dairy

• Well-studied and physician-recommended

• Good gut health profile from fiber diversity

Cons:

• Heavy on whole grains, which can be gut-irritating for some

• Doesn’t address seed oil quality or PUFA intake

• Low sodium recommendation may be counterproductive, not accounting of the RAAS or for metabolically active people

• Doesn’t prioritize thyroid-supportive or nutrient-dense animal foods

• Can feel clinical and joyless

What I’d Add: DASH + some pro-metabolic foods would genuinely be a great diet for many Americans. Only thing is to balance electrolytes to physiological needs (especially if active). Learn to balance adrenaline, water, sodium to suppress the renin angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS). Add organ meats and shellfish. Replace grain emphasis with more root vegetables and fruit or pseudo grains like buckwheat. Swap seed oils for olive oil, butter, and coconut oil.

4. Vertical Diet

Grade: B+

Stan Efferding built this for performance, and it delivers. Red meat and white rice as the base, with targeted micronutrient additions. Simple, digestible, effective-especially for athletes. I think it’s one of the best diets out there for body composition and athletes.

Pros:

• Excellent digestibility- low-FODMAP base reduces gut stress

• High in bioavailable nutrients from red meat

• White rice provides clean, easily metabolized carbohydrates

• Designed for performance and body composition

• Simple to follow and meal prep

Cons:

• Limited food variety can reduce gut microbial diversity over time

• Low fruit and vegetable intake in strict versions

• Designed for high-output athletes- may oversupply calories for sedentary people (some find it hard to manage calories on it)

What I’d Add: Stan built the engine to a damn near perfect diet… it’s Peating for bodybuilders and athletes. To make the last bit better, i’d add liver once or twice a week, oysters EOD, bit more root vegetables and include more dairy if tolerated. I think adding a bit more diversity would make this one of the best diets you could follow.

A-TIER

3. Mediterranean

Grade: A-

The most evidence-backed diet in human history, and for good reason. Fruits, vegetables, olive oil, fish, moderate meat and dairy, some wine. No other diet has this much longevity data behind it- and nothing else comes close on sustainability. You can eat this way for decades without thinking about it, and the research says you’ll live longer for it. And it tastes great!

Pros:

• Overwhelming longevity evidence- reduced cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegeneration

• The most socially sustainable diet on this list- enjoyable, culturally rich, zero grinding with meal prep containers

• Excellent variety of nutrient-dense whole foods

• High in omega-3s from fish, polyphenols from olive oil and produce, helping the omega 6 burden in many folks

• Strong gut health profile from diverse fiber sources and fermented foods

• Low stress load. It’s enjoyable

Cons:

• Often interpreted too loosely… “Mediterranean” becomes pasta and bread from Olive Garden

• Doesn’t explicitly address PUFA intake or seed oil quality

• Can be too grain-heavy in modern interpretations

• Doesn’t prioritize thyroid-supportive foods specifically

• Lower in nutrient density per calorie than animal-based approaches

What I’d Add: actual Mediterranean eating in Sardinia or Crete looks like sardines, lamb, goat cheese, figs, tomatoes, olive oil, and wine with a 3-hour family dinner. Keep that in mind if your lifestyle sucks right now. Swap high omega 6 oils- even if Mediterranean- for butter, coconut oil, and extra virgin olive oil exclusively. Add organ meats once a week, even just 4 oz of liver. That’s pretty Mediterranean btw. Ensure foods like shellfish, eggs, and dairy are included. A Mediterranean framework with awareness of bioenergetic principles is wonderful.

2. Animal-Based

Grade: A

Think carnivore’s evolved sibling. Organ meats, muscle meat, fruit, honey, raw dairy- the nutrient density is hard to beat. Paul Saladino popularized this, and the core idea is sound: eat the most bioavailable foods on the planet and add strategic carbohydrates. If you care about body composition and raw nutrient density per calorie, this is an amazing framework.

Pros:

• Highest nutrient density of any diet here- organ meats cover virtually every micronutrient need

• Best-in-class protein quality supports superior body composition

• Fruit and honey provide clean carbohydrate fuel for metabolic rate

• Eliminates most gut irritants (seed oils, grains, legumes)

• Bioavailable minerals (zinc, copper, iron, selenium) from animal sources

• Easy guidelines to follow for general population (ex. eat meat + fruit)

Cons:

• Can be expensive and logistically difficult

• Low fiber long-term may reduce microbial diversity, so take’s planning

• Limited vegetable intake means missing out on certain polyphenols and prebiotic fibers

• Social sustainability is tough… just watch Saladino going through the airport haha.

• Can be too restrictive (Paul is an example, probably marketing levers)

What I’d Add: More cooked root vegetables, squash, and well-cooked greens instead of fruit only. Include 2–4 servings of shellfish per week; 4-6 oysters at once hits many nutrients- arguably the most nutrient dense food you could have per calorie. The animal-based framework is unmatched for nutrient density with minimal metabolic disruption- which is why it is ranked this high. Ensure mentally you don’t lock yourself in to be obsessive about it and fear foods that are not “safe”. (which goes for any diet.)

1. Bioenergetic / Pro-Metabolic

Grade: A+

A well designed Bioenergetic diet will change a person’s life. I’ve seen more hallelujah moments, gut health issues resolved, thyroid recover, anxiety and depression take a back seat when someone adopts this way of eating.

Inspired by the work of Ray Peat, this approach prioritizes cellular energy production, thyroid output, and CO2 metabolism above all else. It’s the only dietary framework that explicitly asks: is this food supporting or suppressing oxidative metabolism?

Mediterranean has the most evidence. Animal-based has the highest nutrient density. But pro-metabolic is the only framework that explains WHY both of them work, then gives you the principles to build something even better, personalized to you.

Pros:

• Directly supports thyroid function and T4-to-T3 conversion

• Prioritizes easily digestible carbohydrates (fruit, dairy, root vegetables, cooked veggies) that fuel oxidative metabolism

• Includes nutrient-dense animal foods (dairy, eggs, liver, shellfish, gelatinous foods) for micronutrient coverage

• Minimizes PUFAs, which suppress thyroid and increase lipid peroxidation

• Keeps cortisol and adrenaline low by maintaining blood sugar stability; the ultimate “Anti-Stress” diet which is what most people need to calm down chronic mental and physical stressors

• Excellent gut health outcomes when fiber is managed intelligently

• Balanced calcium:phosphorus intake

Cons:

• Steep learning curve. Requires understanding bioenergetic principles- too complicated for general population at first; making it harder than “eat meat only"

• Can become overly dogmatic in online communities (can get cultish, avoid all toxins, reduced to supplements etc)

• It’s sadly been reduced to orange juice, ice cream, milk, carrots and coke

• Dairy and sugar emphasis can be off-putting to newcomers

• Limited mainstream recognition means fewer practitioners and resources

What I’d Add: People who start here over-rely on dairy, carrots and orange juice. That’s not the diet lol. The diet is more about principles than any specific foods. Again, principles- not foods. That’s what makes it special. Anyone who starts this way of eating should be highly in tune to their bodies needs, deciding and feeling what they need at a certain time. The framework is incredible, but the execution can be complicated. This is what I build for my clients who need to see some change.

So… what do I actually eat?

If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably noticed a pattern.

The diets that rank highest share the same core principles:

• Quality animal protein at every meal. (eggs, beef, fish, dairy, organ meats) Not too much, not too little. Liver + oysters weekly if you can take the taste.

• Abundant fruit and cooked vegetables. All indicators point to having MANY of these foods. Find ones your gut tolerates well. Rotate often.

• Saturated/monounsaturated fats (butter, olive oil, ghee) over excessive seed oils, balancing out omega 6:3 ratio and avoiding mitochondrial sickness.

• Enough total food to actually support your metabolic rate instead of crashing it. Eat maintenance calories or slightly below/above. Don’t starve yourself.

• Seafood, shellfish, collagenous foods for the micronutrients + minerals most people are chronically missing.

• A delicious food menu that makes adherence easy. It should taste EXCELLENT for you to follow!

Do that. That is the best way you could eat.

You don’t need a name for this. You don’t need a community telling you what is good or bad for you. You just need a framework built around energy production- PERSONALIZED- and the discipline to follow through with it without getting obsessive over perfection.

If you want more guidance, I built the High Energy Diet Model to give you exactly that. You can trust this template. I don’t care if you download it or not- it’s a helpful framework to get started. It’s the same nutritional framework I use with my coaching clients- the foods, the timing, the principles-distilled into something you can start today. If I can say anything, it takes the best of each diet and puts it into one page so that you can bring to the grocery store (and still enjoy your favorite foods.)

[Download the FREE High Energy Diet Model here →]

Summary

The best diets share these pieces- quality animal protein, abundant fruits and vegetables, seafood, minimal processed food, and fats that don’t destroy your cells. They keep your thyroid high, cortisol low, gut diverse, and hold onto muscle mass.

If you’ve learned anything today, eat for your PERSONAL energy- not some dietary ideology.

The High Energy Approach

Any of these can work, but diets can be confusing. There’s so much information and you have a hard time deciding what YOU need to follow.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

I had just finished eating a whole Papa John’s pizza in my apartment- lonely, sad and disgusted that I pounded that pizza in mere minutes... I inhaled the pizookie too. This was honestly one of the lowest points of my life: I was tipping the scale at 322.2 lbs.

But, in divine timing, God came through. That evening I had a breaking point in my life, shedding more tears than I ever have before. I went and looked in the mirror, and all I saw was who I was right now- fat, sad and an emotional wreck, not living up to the expectations of who I could be. Wasting potential and gifts that could change lives.

Mustering up a spark of internal passion, I looked in that mirror right then and said “No more.” I am DONE being this guy! I got my phone and took my before pictures- because I knew with every ounce of my being that I would lose all of my weight. I wrote down a goal on a piece of paper “205”.

In a period of time that felt like a Rocky training scene- I got after it. Soon enough, I weighed 204.6 lbs. I lost all of my fat, got ripped and haven’t gained it back since- 7 years later.

Now I stay lean year round without tracking calories, without overexercising, and with total food freedom. I eat when I want. Whatever I crave. And most importantly- I stopped stressing about food. It no longer owns me.

I didn’t use Ozempic. I didn’t go keto. I didn’t fast. I didn’t count a single macro for more than a few weeks. I figured out something the entire diet industry either doesn’t know or doesn’t want you to know:

Being overweight is a symptom.

The industry attacks fat loss as a math equation. Calories in, calories out. Move more, eat less. And when that stops working and you gain the weight back, they hand you a pill.

But nobody address why you’re over fat in the first place. Nobody looks at the metabolism that tanked from years of restrictive dieting or poor nutrition. The hormones that went sideways from chronic stress. The reward system that got hijacked by those dopamine boxes in your pocket (grandma was right- it’s that dang phone!) The emotional patterns you’ve been running since childhood that make food the only reliable source of comfort.

Being overweight has four main root causes:

1. Broken metabolism

2. Broken reward system

3. Poor emotional regulation

4. Outdated belief system

Miss any one of those and you’ll yo-yo forever. Address all four and the weight comes off- and stays off- without starving your way through another 8-week shred that leaves you fatter than when you started.

Let’s dive in.

“If we learn to see problems in terms of a general disorder of energy metabolism, we can begin to solve them.” -Ray Peat

The Real Cost of Being Overweight

I need to twist the knife here before we go further. Because some of you are reading this comfortably without any pain to change. You’ve normalized reading fat loss information without taking massive action NOW. You’ve told yourself it’s fine, you’re just a little “bigger”… but you’ve sized up on your clothes from a few years ago. And the culture will pat you on the back for that (congrats, you’re right where they want you.)

I’m not doing that. Because I care about you more than your comfort. I know what it’s like to be obese and the life that it leads. Getting lean is worth it’s weight in gold, but right now it’s costing you everything without you even realizing it:

It’s costing you years. Not theoretical years at the end of your life when you’re 90. Real years, right now at this very moment. Every day you carry excess body fat, your cardiovascular system struggles. Your heart is pumping harder to push blood through tissue that shouldn’t be there. Your joints are grinding under load they weren’t designed for. Your liver is drowning in fat. Your hormones are wrecked- insulin resistant, estrogen climbing, testosterone falling, thyroid converting to reverse T3 instead of the active hormone that makes you feel alive. You are aging faster than you should be. That’s not an opinion. That’s what the bloodwork shows.

It’s costing you your relationships. You don’t have the energy to show up for the people who you love most. You’re irritable from the blood sugar swings. You’re withdrawn because you don’t feel good in your own skin. You avoid the beach, the pool, the family photo, the spontaneous trip because you’d have to be seen. Your kids want to play and you’re on the couch. Your partner wants connection but you’re too depleted to give it. The people who love you are getting a fraction of the real you who’s hidden under 30lbs of fat.

It’s costing you money. Medical bills, medications and the supplement cabinet. The bigger clothes every year. The food bill from eating out of emotion instead of intention. The lost productivity from brain fog and fatigue. The career opportunities you didn’t pursue because you lacked the confidence or energy. Add it up over a decade… and the number of dollars you’ve missed is astounding.

It’s costing you your connection to God, to Source, to Spirit- whatever want to call it. When your body is inflamed, stressed, and running on survival chemistry, you can’t access higher states of being. You can’t feel gratitude when your cells are screaming for glucose. You can’t feel peace when your nervous system is in perpetual fight or flight. You can’t feel purpose when you’re exhausted by noon. Excessive consumption without consciousness is not self love… it’s self abandonment.

And it’s costing you YOU. The version of yourself that is energetic. That wakes up clear and ready. That looks in the mirror and feels something other than avoiding the Self in the mirror. That moves through the world with confidence. That person exists already right now. I know because I met him on the other side of 120 lbs.

You didn’t come here to stay comfortable. You came here because something in you knows there’s more- and that’s what i’m going to share now.

Why Traditional Dieting Fails (Every Single Time)

Here’s something that would’ve saved me years of previous dieting failures… the diet you’re loyal to is probably the thing keeping you stuck.

I’m not just talking about intense calorie restriction- though that’s part of it. I’m talking about the entire industry of dietary ideologies right now that promise salvation through elimination, like carnivore, vegan, keto, paleo & fasting protocols. Every single one of them has a cult following, cherry-picks studies, and has a graveyard of people who tried it, lost weight, then gained it all back and even more.

Carnivore will strip the carbohydrates your thyroid needs to convert T4 to active T3. You’ll feel great for 3-9 months riding the cortisol and adrenaline wave- your body literally running on stress hormones to manufacture glucose from your own tissue. Then the wall hits. Sleep tanks. Libido disappears. You’re running on backup power and calling it optimization. Then the moment you try eating normal again besides meat + water? You balloon up and blame the carbs, but in reality it’s crappy glucose oxidation. I’ve coached people out of this and it’s the same story every time.

Vegan will starve you of the bioavailable nutrients your metabolism depends on- B12, iron, zinc, retinol, complete proteins, creatine. You’ll lose weight because you’re malnourished, not because you’re healthy. Your body temperature drops. Your hormones flatten. Look pretty small.

Keto will increase cortisol regeneration independent of weight loss. That’s the research. A high fat, low carbohydrate diet increases whole body regeneration of cortisol and reduces its inactivation. You’re losing weight while simultaneously increasing the stress hormone that promotes visceral fat storage. The initial results are real. It can absolutely work. But the rebound is gnarly when you try to eat like a normal human again.

Extreme calorie restriction teaches your body one thing: famine is coming, store more fat on less food next time. Every time you diet hard- 800, 1000 calories below maintenance- your body adapts. Thyroid slows. Cortisol rises. Muscle breaks down. Metabolic rate drops. And when you inevitably return to normal eating (because you’re a human, not a robot!), you regain the weight- plus extra. Because your metabolism is now slower than before you started.

GLP-1 drugs suppress appetite without addressing anything underneath or changing your food quality. You lose weight- muscle and fat together- while your metabolism receives zero support. The moment you stop the drug, the weight returns if nothing was fixed. Your thyroid is still sluggish. Your gut is still inflamed. Your emotional patterns are still running. You just had a chemical muzzle on your hunger signal for a while (while also crushing your appetite for life.)

This is why yo-yo dieting exists. This is why 95% of dieters regain weight. Not because you lack discipline. Because every approach does not account for individual differentiation while ignoring the cause (broken metabolism, hijacked reward system, unresolved emotional patterns, limiting beliefs).

Now i’m not here to crap all over your diet ideology. I will get backlash from these camps (watch the comments haha), but no single diet will save you. A system that addresses all four root causes will. If it happened to be carnivore? Good for you. But don’t get religious about your diet approaches, because these diets often backfire (and you end up swapping from diet to diet). Ultimately you must find the system that works now and forever, especially during stressful life periods.

“What’s the best diet? The one you’ll follow.” -Stan Efferding

Now, let’s address the four pillars directly.

The Four Pillars of Permanent Fat Loss

Pillar 1: Metabolism

This is your foundation. The factory. Everything else is built from this.

Your metabolic rate determines how much energy your cells produce, how many calories you burn at rest, and whether your body preferentially burns fat or stores it. A high metabolic rate means warmth, energy, clarity, hormonal balance, and effortless weight maintenance. A low metabolic rate means cold hands, brain fog, stubborn fat, and a body that seems to gain weight by looking at food.

Just think, that for every degree you increase body temperature, you burn an extra 100-130 calories per day. Over a year, that’s 10-13lbs of fat you can avoid gaining simply by being warmer. Not from exercise or eating less. Just from having a metabolism that is working.

If you don’t believe me that metabolism is everything, think of that friend you have that always stays lean eating sugar and burgers all day. They never diet. But they run hot. They have high energy levels. They don’t think about their diet because everything is working as it should. That’s a high metabolic rate. Aging, stress, bad food, and chronic dieting systematically destroy it.

The bioenergetic view says this: obesity is not a sign of excess energy. It’s a sign of inefficient energy production. Your cells are struggling to produce ATP. Your body compensates with stress hormones. Those stress hormones promote fat storage, muscle breakdown, and inflammation. You’re malnourished and overfed simultaneously (like 90% of the population.) Your body should be able to eat whatever it wants, whenever it wants to appetite without getting fat. That’s the goal we are shooting for.

Fix your metabolism and the body finds its natural weight with ease. Fight the metabolism and you fight against your biology forever.

Pillar 2: Reward System

Your brain has a robust reward system designed to motivate you toward things that keep you alive- food, connection, movement, sunlight. Modern life has hijacked it with supernormal stimuli. Foods engineered to be hyperpalatable. Social media triggering dopamine loops every 3 seconds. Caffeine. Sugar-fat combos that don’t exist in nature.

When your reward system is fried, normal food doesn’t satisfy. You will literally be disgusted with a plate of chicken and say you’re not hungry- but you’ll sure as hell eat that cheeseburger. Your brain just wants that dopamine bomb. This isn’t a willpower problem you have, it’s a neurochemical one. You can’t out-discipline a hijacked reward system. You have to reset it.

Dopamine regulation is not optional for permanent fat loss. It’s just as critical as metabolism.

Pillar 3: Emotional Patterns

You will fail on the days your emotions tank. The days you go through stress and need cake. The days you feel shame and need a boost. The days you feel so sad that the only moment of joy you get is from the delicious food right in front of you.

If you don’t understand this, no diet on earth will save you.

Food is the original coping mechanism. For many people, it’s been there longer than any relationship. Longer than any therapist. Before the drinking, the scrolling, the shopping- there was food. Warm, reliable, always available. And it works. For about 15 minutes.

You must learn to see why food became your emotional regulator. Was it how your parents dealt with stress? Culture? Loneliness? A childhood where love came through the kitchen? The root matters because until you see it, you’ll keep running the same program unconsciously.

Fat is stored energy. Energy is emotion- energy in motion. Releasing stored body fat means LETTING GO of what no longer serves you. I have found that the people who have the hardest time losing weight often have the most unprocessed emotional material sitting in their bodies and it needs to be released. This is very common and I usually have to talk through this and the next part in coaching sessions to fix it…

Pillar 4: Belief System

A belief is a thought you think over and over again.

In your day-to-day life, there are certain thought patterns you play on repeat like a broken record player. Often these are in the moments when you’re alone- in the shower, in the car, right before bed. That is the critical moment of awareness. You will hear things like “I don’t like how I look.” “I’m so fat.” “No matter what I do, I can’t lose weight.” “I’ll always be the big one.”

These are not observations, but unconscious programs. And they are running your behavior 24/7.

You must get delusional and shift your beliefs to ones that are empowering- even if reality says otherwise. Get absolutely fed up and say no more. Challenge these limiting beliefs everyday and rehearse the thoughts of what being lean already feels like, such as “I can eat whatever I want and stay lean.” “Missing one meal or having one bad day changes nothing.” “My weight takes care of itself when I take care of my energy.” This is the belief system of the lean you.

Tying It Together

These four pillars ultimately converge into three active strategies to lose fat and stay lean:

1. Increase activity (walking, lifting, hiking, sports, etc)

2. Improve food (less food, better food, food timing, macro splits etc)

3. Raise metabolism (thyroid, fat burners, gut health, stable neurochemistry, etc)

Every intervention here is designed with these in mind.

But here’s what separates the bioenergetic approach from every other method: you prioritize the order of operations. You don’t just eat less and move more. You fix metabolism first so the eating and moving actually produce results instead of more stress!

So, that is the foundation of understanding. Now, let’s get into the interventions to make this work.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

The 12 Tactical Interventions

1. Carbs or Fat- Not Both

You can decide if you want a lower fat, higher carb approach or a lower carb, higher fat approach. Both work. Both have pros and cons. It’s ultimately up to you for what you can be consistent with.

But here’s the rule I give people: avoid heavy mixed meals every day. The combination of high carbs AND high fat in the same meal is the most lipogenic combination that exists. Insulin rises from the carbs. Fat is readily available for storage. Your body stores the fat instead of burning it. This looks like pizza, pasta dishes, fatty meat and starch, etc.

Now this doesn’t mean zero fat with carbs or zero carbs with fat. It means one should dominate. If you’re eating potatoes, keep the butter modest. If you’re eating ribeye steak, skip the massive pile of rice alongside it.

I’ve personally settled on lower fat, higher carb for athletic performance, metabolic rate, total health markers, and longevity. Protein is always constant between 120-180g a day regardless of which fuel source you choose.

Think about it through the bioenergetic lens: carbohydrates produce ATP more efficiently than fats. Less oxidative stress. More CO2 production. Better thyroid conversion. Glucose is the preferred fuel of a high-energy metabolism. Fat oxidation is slower, produces more reactive oxygen species, and shifts the body toward a stress metabolism.

That said- if a higher fat/low carb approach works for you and you feel great on it, do that. There are individual differences. Consistency beats theory every time. Just know that chronically low carb diets + calorie restriction increase cortisol regeneration independent of weight loss. That’s the research.

Solution: Choose your dominant fuel source. Keep protein steady at ~120-180g. Avoid stacking high carbs and high fat in the same meal habitually.

2. Move Your Body, No Excuses

There is no way around this. There is no shortcut. There is no hack. You must find exercise you enjoy doing and do it often!!

The National Weight Control Registry found that 90% of people who lost weight and kept it off exercise about one hour a day on average. This does not mean AMRAPs in CrossFit. Just an hour of movement. Walking counts, playing with your kids counts and yoga counts.

I stay in shape with walking, strength training, and yoga. That’s it. No marathon cardio sessions. No grinding until I puke. Movement that builds muscle, supports metabolism, and makes me feel good.

Here’s the bioenergetic nuance: exercise should add to your energy, not subtract from it. If you’re already stressed, under-eating, sleeping poorly, and running on cortisol- crushing yourself with high-intensity training is gasoline on fire. You’ll break down more muscle than you build. You’ll suppress thyroid further. You’ll raise cortisol higher. And you’ll wonder why the scale won’t budge despite training six days a week.

Match your training to your metabolic state. If you’re depleted, walk and do light resistance training. As your metabolism recovers, progressively increase intensity. Build muscle. Muscle is the most metabolically expensive tissue in your body- it burns calories at rest, improves insulin sensitivity, nutrient partitioning and raises your basal metabolic rate permanently.

Solution: Move every day. Walk as much as possible. Strength train 3-4x per week for muscle. Find what you enjoy. The best exercise program is the one you’ll actually do for the next decade. Stop punishing yourself in the gym and start training for a life of energy!

3. Track Emotions, Not Calories

If you’ve never tracked calories before, doing it for 2-4 weeks will change your perspective on food. I tell people tracking is like training wheels- it’s required to calibrate and eat intuitively. Log everything to see how much you’re actually eating right now. Often there’s something driving an extra 500 calories a day without you realizing it.

But after that initial learning phase? Stop counting and start feeling.

Track your emotional states instead. Open a notes app or grab a notebook. Make three columns:

Time | What I Ate | What I Was Feeling

Every time you eat something you didn’t plan to- or eat past the point of fullness- fill out those three columns. Don’t judge it. Don’t try to fix it. Just log it. For example:

Tuesday 9:47pm | Half a bag of Lay’s | Stressed from work call, couldn’t wind down and I was browsing the pantry.

Sunday 2:15pm | Door dashed Mexican | Lonely, bored, apartment felt empty

Friday 6:30pm | 3 beers + pizza | Exhausted, felt like I “deserved” it after the week

You will start seeing patterns within days. The same emotions that cause you to make poor choices like Stressed, Lonely or Exhausted. The same triggers producing the same response. That’s the information. The food was never the problem. It was simply your emotional state of being!

Now this doesn’t mean you need therapy for ten years haha. It means you need awareness. Consciousness is the intervention. Once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it. And a pattern you can see is a pattern you can change.

Solution: Track calories for 2-4 weeks as training wheels. Then switch to the 3-column emotion log. Run it for 30 days. Identify your top 3 emotional triggers. Develop one alternative response for each that isn’t food- a walk, a phone call, 10 minutes of something you love, stepping outside. You’re not eliminating the emotion.

4. Increase Metabolism

Most fat loss programs try to create a calorie deficit through restriction and exercise; and it’s usually way too steep. The bioenergetic approach creates fat loss by raising metabolic rate so your body burns more energy at baseline, thereby burning more fat over the long term and creating a small deficit with ease to hit your healthy set point.

How to raise metabolism practically:

Eat breakfast. 78% of people in the National Weight Control Registry who maintained 30+ lbs of weight loss eat breakfast every day. The first meal sets the metabolic tone for the day. Control your breakfast- set the tone of the day, metabolism, and blood sugar. Your kids, work, and life won’t interfere with your first meal. Get up earlier.

Eat enough. Under-eating is the fastest way to tank your metabolism. Signal abundance, not scarcity. Your body needs to feel safe to burn body fat. When it perceives famine, it holds onto everything. Eat 3-4 meals a day. Eat protein.

Support thyroid. Adequate carbohydrates, liver, oysters, eggs, dairy, and sufficient calories. If your temperature is below 97.8°F waking and your pulse is under 60- your thyroid is likely underperforming. Read my full guide on thyroid optimization here.

Get sunlight. Light drives metabolism. It increases energy expenditure, vitamin D, and dopamine through mechanisms no supplement replicates. 20-30 minutes a day with skin exposed ideally, no sunglasses. (If sunburn is an issue, use zinc based sunscreens)

Quick Pause- High Energy Coaching

Everything here works. But if you’ve struggled for years with your weight and dealt with chronic dieting, stress, and the wrong information- a Substack article gives you the map, but coaching gives you tactical personalization.

16 weeks, one-on-one with me to lose fat, build muscle and optimize your metabolism and hormones without fad diets, fasting, or pills. I’ve walked this road personally- from 322 lbs to lean year-round.

Book your discovery call here.

Now. Back to the interventions.

5. Signal Abundance, Not Scarcity

Your life is only going to get more stressful. Greater temptations, higher demands and more chaos.

Scarcity-driven diets have no place in our current reality. Extreme calorie restriction, Optavia, Weight Watchers point systems- people regain on these for a reason! Doing this to yourself is not an energetic match for the life you’re trying to build. You are training your biology for famine while trying to perform at your peak. Those two things cannot coexist.

Instead, signal abundance. That means feeling as if you can eat whatever you want and stay lean. If you have the right foods, eat at the right times, and your metabolism is running- you can achieve this. This is not a bypass of calories in, calories out. It’s a recognition that hormones and metabolic rate determine what happens with those calories far more than the raw number.

Here’s what a day of abundance eating looks like for me. This is not a meal plan. This is what it feels like to eat well and never be hungry:

7:00am- Breakfast. 2-5 eggs scrambled with a bit of butter, depending on hunger. Side of fruit like papaya or a glass of fresh OJ/raw milk. Some white button mushrooms usually. Maybe some skyr yogurt if I want more protein. This meal is non-negotiable for me. It sets my day up for success.

11:30am- Lunch. 200g ground beef with 400g potato or rice. Simple. Easily digestible vegetables if I want more volume. Maybe some bone broth or ginger tea. If I want, more OJ.

4:00pm- Snack. Skyr yogurt with honey and berries. Or a banana with a glass of milk. Or maybe even chicken and rice for my pre-workout meal. Something to fuel my workout and get me through until dinner easily.

7:00pm- Dinner. 200g red meat, fresh stew or white fish with a large serving of potatoes, rice, or cooked root vegetables. Cooked in butter or coconut oil. Greens on the side with olive oil or balsamic vinegar. Salted to taste. Usually have a homemade dessert or a medjool date or 2.

That’s roughly 2,400-3,000 calories depending on portions. 160g+ protein. Enough carbs to keep liver glycogen full and cortisol down. Enough fat for satiety without flooding the system. At no point during this day are you hungry lol. I stay lean year round eating this system without even thinking about it. No stress. I eat out maybe 1-3x a month with no issues since metabolism is firing well.

That’s abundance. And it’s how you lose fat without your biology fighting you every step of the way.

Anti-stress nutrition is the core of bioenergetics. When your body feels safe- well fed, warm, rested, nourished- it lets go of fat willingly. When it feels threatened- starved, cold, inflamed, exhausted- it hoards every calorie… and I know you’ve felt that before.

Feed your body like you trust it. Give it safety and eat intuitively (if you’ve calibrated how much calories you need.)

Solution: Build your own version of the day above. 3-4 real meals plus 1-2 snacks. Eat enough to last you 3-5 hours before next meal, which optimizes MMC. Eat enough to maintain body temperature and stable energy. The goal is controlled abundance- not restriction disguised as discipline.

6. Optimize Reward System

Your reward system is either working for you or against you. There’s no neutral.

If you wake up and immediately check your phone, drink caffeine, scroll through content designed to trigger polarization, eat hyperpalatable processed food, and spend your evening on Netflix and snacks- your dopamine system is fried my friend. Your baseline is wrecked. And normal, healthy behaviors feel boring because your brain needs increasingly intense stimulation to feel anything.

This is why you can’t stick to a “clean” diet. It’s not discipline. It’s neurochemistry. A chicken breast with potatoes can’t compete with engineered food + Instagram + caffeine + sugar in terms of dopamine output. Your brain is playing a game it can’t win!!

So the fix isn’t more willpower or grinding through a clean diet. It’s lowering the noise coming in.

Cut caffeine if you’re stress-dominant (read my cortisol article for why). Reduce screen time, especially within the first and last hour of your day. Eliminate or dramatically reduce hyperpalatable junk food- the stuff designed in labs to make you overeat. Replace dopamine bombs with natural rewards: sunlight, movement, real social connection, cooking your own food, music, nature.

Within 2-4 weeks of lowering the dopamine noise floor, something remarkable happens. Simple food starts tasting incredible. A walk feels genuinely good. You can sit in silence without reaching for your phone. Your reward system recalibrates. And food stops being your primary source of pleasure.

Solution: Audit your dopamine inputs. Identify the top 3 artificial dopamine sources in your daily life. Reduce them systematically over 2 weeks. Replace with natural rewards. Watch your relationship with food transform.

7. Master Basic Meals

Cheap, easy and nutrient dense. This isn’t complicated!

The people who succeed at long-term fat loss don’t eat elaborate meals. They master 5-7 staple meals they can make in under 20 minutes that taste good, fill them up, and provide what their body needs. Then they rotate.

Here are my staples:

Beef Bowl. Ground beef or chicken with potato or rice. Coconut oil if you want. I swap seasonings for different flavors, but keep the base the same.

Eggs and fruit. 2-5 eggs scrambled with butter, side of fruit or OJ.

Skyr yogurt bowl. Skyr with honey, berries, and a sprinkle of cocoa/honey.

Meat and potatoes. Red meat (beef, lamb, bison) with 1-2 medium boiled or baked potatoes. Simple. The original anti-stress meal.

I keep these core structures, but add in other pro-metabolic foods for micronutrient density and keeping things fresh.

The more decisions you have to make about food, the more likely you are to make bad ones. Remove the decision. Master the meals. Eat the same things during the week. Save variety for weekends and social meals.

Solution: Pick 5-7 go-to meals. Shop for them weekly. Prep what you can. Stop trying to make every meal interesting. Boring consistency beats exciting inconsistency every single time.

Download my FREE High Energy Diet Model for a full list of foods to eat. Keep it on your phone or bring to the grocery store for easy reference.

8. Improve Gut Health

If you can’t digest food properly, nothing else matters. You could eat the perfect diet and still be malnourished if your gut can’t absorb it.

A compromised gut leaks bacterial endotoxin into your bloodstream. Your body treats this like an infection, surging cortisol, increasing inflammation, and tanking thyroid hormone while increase fat storage efficiency. You’re fighting an invisible war in your intestines and wondering why you can’t lose the last 20 lbs.

Practical gut interventions:

Raw carrot salad. 1-2 raw carrots daily, shredded with olive oil, salt, and white or apple cider vinegar. The insoluble fiber binds endotoxin and excess estrogen before they can recirculate. Antibacterial compounds in the carrot peel reduce populations of endotoxin-producing bacteria. This is one of the simplest, most effective interventions that Ray Peat always recommended.

Activated charcoal or Enterosgel. These bind LPS directly in the gut and carry it out. Take between meals, away from food and supplements.

White button mushrooms and bamboo shoots. Similar binding mechanisms to the carrot salad- with the mushrooms being the most potent. 100-200g cooked, few times weekly.

Reduce gut irritants. Raw cruciferous vegetables, beans, lentils, excessive nuts and seeds, artificial sweeteners, alcohol. If it gives you gas, bloating, or discomfort- your gut is telling you something. Listen to it!

Solution: Daily white button mushrooms are amazing. Consider Enterosgel or activated charcoal between meals. Reduce known gut irritants. Prioritize cooked, easy-to-digest foods. Your gut is key to optimizing metabolism.

(Read my article here on Gut Health for a deeper dive.)

9. Anti-Inflammatory Practices

Anything driving excessive inflammation can block fat burning. Inflammation and fat loss are inversely related. The more inflamed you are, the harder your body holds onto fat.

The big inflammatory drivers most people don’t realize:

Seed oils. Polyunsaturated fats from soybean, canola, sunflower, corn, and safflower oil are in everything. They oxidize easily, produce inflammatory prostaglandins, suppress thyroid, and promote fat storage. This is the single most destructive ingredient in the modern diet and it’s in 90% of restaurant food and packaged products. These fats suppress mitochondrial energy production directly. Replace them with coconut oil, butter, and olive oil. This single change shifts your cells from sluggish fat oxidation toward clean glucose burning.

Chronic stress. Cortisol itself is inflammatory when chronically elevated. It mobilizes PUFAs from stored tissue, those PUFAs oxidize into more inflammatory compounds, and cortisol rises again to suppress the new inflammation. A self-feeding loop.

Poor sleep. One night of bad sleep raises inflammatory markers measurably. Chronic poor sleep creates a baseline of inflammation your body can’t clear.

Lack of sunlight. Darkness is a stress. Light exposure supports progesterone production, lowers inflammation, and improves cellular energy production.

No movement. Sedentary living promotes inflammation at every level.

Anti-inflammatory tools that actually work are things like: ginger (powerful COX inhibitor), aspirin, (breaks the prostaglandin loop), adequate vitamin E (protects against PUFA oxidation), magnesium (most people are deficient), and eliminating seed oils from your diet.

Solution: Eliminate seed oils. Prioritize sleep. Get daily sunlight. Move your body. Use ginger liberally- I recommend a ginger tea. Consider aspirin with vitamin K if appropriate. Address the root of inflammation rather than masking it with supplements.

10. 80/20 Rule

This is built into my diet models for a reason. Give yourself guilt-free ways to enjoy food- don’t set yourself up to fail from the start by trying to be perfect.

80% of the time, eat nutrient-dense whole foods that support your metabolism. Meat. Eggs. Dairy. Fruit. Seafood. Root vegetables. Real food grown on this planet.

20% of the time, eat whatever you want. Cake at a birthday party. Pizza on a Friday night. Ice cream on a hot day. Eat it without guilt, without compensation, without “I’ll run it off tomorrow.” Enjoy it completely, in FULL GRATITUDE. Then go right back to the 80%.

The moment you make any food “forbidden,” you create a psychological charge around it. You put yourself into scarcity. Forbidden food becomes the only thing you think about. This is restriction psychology 101. The stricter the diet, the harder the binge when it breaks. And it always breaks!

The 80/20 rule defuses this entirely. Nothing is off limits. You’re not on a diet. You’re a person who eats well most of the time and enjoys life the rest. That identity is sustainable. A “clean eater” identity is a prison.

Eat cake if cake comes to you. Don’t deny grandma’s brownies. Just don’t go looking for it every night.

Solution: 80% real, nutrient-dense food. 20% whatever you want, guilt-free. No compensation. In practice this looks like 1 out of every 5 meals, or 1 out of every 5 days you eat something not perfect for you.

11. Get Out of Fight or Flight

If you haven’t read my article 13 Ways to Turn Off Cortisol For Good, go read it after this one. Excessive cortisol is quite destructive for healthy weight regulation and fat loss phases.

When your nervous system is locked in sympathetic overdrive- fight or flight mode- your body prioritizes survival over everything. Fat storage increases (especially visceral fat around the midsection). Muscle breaks down for emergency glucose. Thyroid suppresses. Digestion shuts down. Sleep deteriorates. Hormones crater.

You cannot burn fat efficiently in a stress state. Your body thinks it’s in danger, hoarding it’s resources for the emergency. The “stubborn belly fat that won’t budge no matter what you do” is almost always a cortisol signature.

How to shift out of fight or flight:

Eat enough carbs. Every blood sugar crash triggers a cortisol rescue spike. Feed your body so it doesn’t have to run on stress chemistry. Learn how to balance your blood sugar.

Cut caffeine for now if you’re chronically stressed. Caffeine directly stimulates cortisol and adrenaline in those who are running on empty. It borrows energy from tomorrow and the bill comes with interest.

Sleep. Please. Poor sleep and elevated cortisol create a feedback loop that no supplement can break. (Pro tip- eat 1/3 cup of pure vanilla ice cream before bed to sleep like a rock.)

Reduce stimulation. Less news. Less social media. Less outrage content. Less noise. Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between a lion and a political argument on X. It responds to both the same way.

Do the hard thing you’ve been avoiding. The conversation, the decision, the confrontation. Avoidance is a cortisol factory running 24/7 in the background. One hard conversation can drop cortisol more than a month of supplements.

Solution: Read the cortisol article. Eat enough. Sleep enough. Cut caffeine if stress-dominant. Reduce stimulation. Face what you’ve been avoiding. Your nervous system has to feel safe before it will let go of stored fat.

12. Take Your Time

This is the one nobody wants to hear… but this takes time.

You didn’t gain the weight in 12 weeks. You’re not going to lose it PROPERLY in 8 weeks either that these bozos promise you. And every time you try to rush it with extreme measures, you teach your body to rebound harder next time.

Aim for 2 lbs per week maximum. That’s real fat loss with muscle preservation. Any faster and you’re losing muscle, suppressing thyroid, tanking hormones, and setting up the exact metabolic damage that caused yo-yo dieting in the first place. 1lb a week is the most sustainable.

The people who keep the weight off for life are the ones who changed slowly, who built habits instead of following programs, who prioritized how they felt over how fast the scale moved and who chose the right path and never looked back.

Take your time. Avoid the yo-yo. Every time you restrict super hard, you teach your body to get fatter on less.

And here’s the part that makes this approach different from every other one: as your metabolism heals, fat loss becomes easier over time, not harder. Because you’re not fighting a suppressed metabolism, you are now running optimized. The first month is the hardest. By month three, your body is cooperating. By month six, you wonder why you ever thought it was supposed to be a struggle.

Solution: 1-2 lbs per week. No extreme deficits. Prioritize habits over speed. Build slowly. Trust the process. Once you hit your weight goal, you will be able to sustain since you built the right habits during the whole time.

The First Two Weeks

You don’t need to implement all 12 interventions on Monday. That’s how you overwhelm yourself and quit by Wednesday. Layer them in one at a time.

Week 1-2: Foundation

• Eat breakfast every day within 90 minutes of waking. Eggs, fruit, dairy- something real that you enjoy. This alone will change your energy and get you ready for the rest of the day.

• Walk 20-30 minutes daily. Just walk. Morning is best- combine it with sunlight. If you can, 8,000 steps a day is a great target.

• Start the 3-column emotion log. Time, What I Ate, What I Was Feeling. Every unplanned eating event gets logged. No judgement to yourself- awareness is your goal.

That’s it for the first two weeks. All of them are subtracting stress and adding energy. Your body will start to respond, and after you master this- the next steps come right along. After two weeks, address one more thing on this list.

By the end of 30 days, you will have addressed metabolism, emotional patterns, reward system, and belief system. All four pillars without extreme dieting.

Now month two is where it gets fun. Your body starts cooperating with you- food cravings quiet down, energy is through the roof. And the fat starts coming off- not because you’re fighting for it, but because your biology finally has no reason to hold onto it.

You don’t need GLP-1s. You don’t need hacks. You don’t need drugs. You need to make better decisions within a framework that respects your biology instead of fighting it.

This approach is subtraction through addition. Add so many sources of genuine energy- food, hormones, sunlight, movement, connection, purpose- that your body no longer needs to hold onto stored fat as a survival mechanism.

The High Energy Approach

These 12 interventions work. But if your metabolism has been suppressed for years, your hormones are sideways, and your body has adapted to stress as its operating system- unwinding that takes precision.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Do your own research, work with someone qualified, and don’t outsource your health decisions to anyone- including me. This is a starting point, not a prescription.

I wish I was joking.

Picture it. Mid-afternoon on a summer day. Just trying to grab some beef and eggs. And every single step… pfft, pfft, pfft… like clockwork. Embarrassed, I had to find an empty aisle to get some relief, speed walk away, then pray the store was loud enough to cover it and that the poor old lady walking past me lost her sense of smell. I remember that day in the Sprouts parking lot thinking: what in the world is wrong with me?

This wasn’t just a bad day. This was every day for like 2 years.

I hadn’t eaten fast food in over a year. No seed oils. No junk. Quality meat, vegetables, eggs- doing everything right. And my body was responding by bloating me into a balloon by noon and letting me poop maybe 3x a week if I was lucky. Three days between bowel movements on the healthiest diet I’d ever eaten.

I’d tried everything the gut health world told me to try. Probiotics. L-glutamine. Juice cleanses. Elimination diets. Greens powders. Low FODMAP. High fiber. No fiber. No sugar. Two years of protocols. Two years of supplements. Two years of nothing changing except my supplement cabinet getting bigger.

And the whole time, this low-grade misery I couldn’t shake. Not just physical. Something deeper. I didn’t feel at home in my own body. Eating- the most basic human act- had become a major source of my anxiety. Every meal was a gamble. Will this bloat me? Will I be stuck on the couch after this? Will I crap myself on todays leg session? I was 220 pounds of muscle eating a perfect diet and terrified of a small plate of food.

Then I stopped trying to fix my gut.

I fixed my energy production first. And my digestion came online like someone flipped a switch I didn’t know existed.

Within weeks, motility returned. Going daily. Then twice daily. The bloating started clearing. The gas just... stopped. I’d eat a meal and feel warm. Calm. No heaviness. No countdown to discomfort. Transit time of 12 hours. For the first time in years, I ate and forgot about it. That’s it. That’s what normal digestion feels like- you eat and you move on with your life. I’d forgotten that was even possible.

That moment broke my brain. Because I realized I’d been treating my gut like it was broken- when it was starved. Starved of the metabolic energy it needed to do its job. Gut lining turns over every 3-5 days. That regeneration demands enormous amounts of ATP. When the thyroid is sluggish, ATP drops, and the gut is the first thing to go- motility slows, stomach acid tanks, enzymes dry up, bacteria overgrow. I wasn’t dealing with a gut problem. I was dealing with an energy crisis that showed up in my gut first.

You know the feeling. You eat well but still feel heavy. Your stomach is never flat no matter how lean you get everywhere else. You blame the food. Switch diets. Try elimination protocols. Go carnivore. Go low FODMAP. Nothing sticks because the problem was never what you’re eating. The problem is that your body doesn’t have the energy to digest it.

And look at how the world tries to solve this. Probiotic supplements with 50 billion CFUs that die in stomach acid. Fiber powders that bloat you worse. Bone broth cleanses. Gut “resets” that last four days and fix nothing. An entire industry built on the idea that gut health is about adding more stuff to your gut- when the real problem is the energy crisis underneath it.

None of it works. Because if your cellular energy is broken, your thyroid is sluggish, and your gut is overrun with endotoxin- no supplement on earth will save you.

Gut health isn’t a digestion problem. It’s an energy problem. And that’s what I’m going to fix for you right now.

All disease begins in the gut" - Hippocrates

What Gut Health Actually Is (And Why Everyone Gets It Wrong)

Gut health is trending. Every doctor, influencer or coach thinks they have the answer- take a probiotic, eat some yogurt. Fixed.

That tells you almost nothing about what’s actually going on. And what they won’t tell you is how deep gut issues can run- especially when emotionally rooted (I’ll break this down later). There is no immediate fix, no hack or no supplement that will solve every gut issue… although some things on this list will get you very close.

Anyways, here’s what gut health actually means. Your gut is a living ecosystem- a tube of tissue, bacteria, immune cells, and nerve endings that processes everything you put in your mouth and decides what gets into your bloodstream and what gets expelled. It’s not passive plumbing. It’s an active, intelligent barrier between you and the outside world.

Three things need to work simultaneously for a healthy gut:

Motility. Food moves through at the right speed. Not too fast (diarrhea, malabsorption). Not too slow (fermentation, bacterial overgrowth, constipation). The migrating motor complex- your gut’s built-in cleaning wave- sweeps bacteria and debris from the small intestine between meals. When motility breaks, bacteria accumulate where they don’t belong. That’s SIBO. That’s the beginning of the end.

Barrier integrity. The intestinal lining is one cell thick. One cell between the contents of your gut and your bloodstream. When that barrier holds, nutrients pass through and toxins stay out. When it break- from inflammation, cortisol, endotoxin, PUFAs- bacterial fragments leak into circulation. Your immune system treats them like an infection. Inflammation goes systemic. Cortisol rises. Hormones crash. Every organ downstream suffers.

Microbial balance. Your gut contains trillions of bacteria. Some produce vitamins, short-chain fatty acids, and neurotransmitters. Others produce endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide), methane, hydrogen sulfide- metabolic poisons. The ratio matters. When beneficial bacteria dominate, digestion works. When pathogenic bacteria overgrow- from antibiotics, stress, alcohols, poor motility- the gut becomes a factory for inflammation.

When all three work, you eat and forget about it. Food becomes fuel. You absorb what you need. You eliminate what you don’t. No bloating. No gas. No drama.

When they fail, every bite of food becomes a stress event. And the cascade that follows touches everything.

How to Know Your Gut Is Broken

Your body tells you. Constantly. You probably smell it. Most people have just normalized the signals.

Bloating after meals. Not occasional. Predictable. Every time you eat, your stomach distends. You look six months pregnant by dinner. This is bacterial fermentation- food sitting in your gut feeding the wrong organisms instead of being absorbed.

Irregular bowel movements. Healthy digestion produces 1-3 well-formed, easy-to-pass stools daily. Ghost wipes. No urgency. No straining. If you’re constipated, swinging between extremes, or seeing undigested food- something is off.

Food sensitivities that multiply. You used to eat everything. Now dairy bothers you. Then gluten. Then eggs. Then FODMAPs. The list keeps growing. This isn’t your body becoming more “sensitive.” It’s your gut barrier breaking down, letting partially digested proteins into your bloodstream, and your immune system reacting to them. The sensitivity is a symptom, not a cause.

Brain fog after eating. You eat lunch and thirty minutes later you can’t think straight. Heavy. Sluggish. Mentally offline. That’s endotoxin crossing the gut barrier and triggering a systemic inflammatory response. Your brain is reacting to what leaked through.

Skin issues. Acne. Eczema. Rosacea. Psoriasis. The skin is the gut turned inside out. When the gut can’t eliminate toxins properly, they exit through your skin. Every dermatologist treats the surface. The source is three feet lower.

Chronic fatigue that food doesn’t fix. You eat enough. You sleep enough. You’re still exhausted. Because your gut isn’t absorbing the nutrients from the food you eat. You’re calorically fed and nutritionally starved. Your mitochondria are running on empty because the raw materials never made it past a broken intestinal wall.

Anxiety and mood issues. Over 90% of serotonin is produced in the gut. Over 50% of dopamine. The vagus nerve runs directly from your gut to your brain. When the gut is inflamed, neurotransmitter production tanks. The gut-brain axis isn’t a metaphor. It’s anatomy. Your anxiety might not be in your head. It might be in your intestines.

What a Broken Gut Does to Your Body

This is where it gets serious. A broken gut doesn’t stay in your gut. It goes everywhere.

It blocks muscle growth. You can eat 200g of protein daily and build nothing if your gut can’t break it down and absorb the amino acids. Undigested protein ferments in the colon, feeding pathogenic bacteria and producing ammonia and hydrogen sulfide- literal poisons. Your expensive grass-fed steak becomes bacterial fuel instead of muscle fuel. CICO is not the whole picture. It never was. It’s your ability to digest, absorb, and assimilate food that determines what actually reaches your cells. Two people can eat the same meal and get radically different results based on gut function alone.

It makes you store fat. Endotoxin from gut bacteria drives insulin resistance directly. LPS in the bloodstream triggers inflammatory cytokines that block insulin signaling at the receptor level. Your body compensates by producing more insulin. More insulin means more fat storage, especially visceral fat around the midsection. You’re not fat because you eat too much. You’re fat because your gut is leaking bacterial poison into your blood and your body is in damage control mode.

It tanks your hormones. Gut bacteria regulate estrogen metabolism through an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase. When bad bacteria overproduce this enzyme, estrogen that was tagged for elimination gets reactivated and recirculated. Estrogen dominance follows. In men, this means low testosterone, high body fat, poor recovery. In women, it means PMS, heavy periods, bloating, mood swings, weight gain. The gut-estrogen connection is one of the most under appreciated drivers of hormonal dysfunction.

It suppresses thyroid function. Here’s the connection almost nobody makes: SIBO has been found in more than 50% of people with a history of hypothyroidism. That’s not a coincidence. Bacterial overgrowth increases endotoxin, which raises cortisol, which suppresses T4-to-T3 conversion. Meanwhile, gut inflammation impairs the intestinal conversion of T4 to T3 that accounts for roughly 20% of your active thyroid hormone. Your thyroid isn’t broken. Your gut is sabotaging it.

It wrecks your immune system. 70-80% of your immune tissue lives in and around the gut. The gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) is your first line of defense. When the gut barrier breaks, the immune system goes into overdrive- chronic low-grade activation that never resolves. This manifests as autoimmunity, frequent illness, allergies, and food reactions. Your immune system isn’t overreacting. It’s responding appropriately to a gut that won’t stop leaking threats into the bloodstream.

It ages you from the inside. Chronic gut inflammation produces systemic oxidative stress. Endotoxin drives NF-kB activation- the master inflammatory switch. This accelerates cellular aging, degrades collagen, impairs detoxification pathways, and creates the conditions for every chronic disease. The bloated, tired, foggy, hormonally wrecked version of you isn’t aging naturally. It’s aging prematurely because the gut is producing a constant inflammatory load your body was never designed to carry long-term.

The Spiritual Cost of a Broken Gut

“I think the reason fasting has had a reputation for facilitating enlightenment is that intestinal toxins create a chronic state of depression and sense of helplessness.” - Ray Peat

I’m going here again. And probably always will. Because it matters more than most of you realize.

In nearly every energy-based tradition- yogic, Taoist, indigenous- the gut corresponds to the second energy center. The sacral center. And what does this center govern? Safety. Security. Comfort. Creativity. Pleasure. Emotional flow. The feeling of belonging in your own body and in the world.

“The second energy center is behind and slightly below your navel. It governs the ovaries, uterus, colon, pancreas, and lower back. It has to do with consumption, digestion, elimination, and the breaking down of food into energy—including digestive enzymes and juices as well as the enzymes and hormones that balance your blood sugar levels. This center is also connected to the superior mesenteric nerve plexus. This energy center is also related to social networks and structures, relationships, support systems, family, cultures, and interpersonal relationships. Think about it as the center for holding on or letting go—consuming or eliminating. When this center is in balance, you feel safe and secure both in your environment and in the world.” -Dr. Joe Dispenza, Becoming Supernatural

So when this center is blocked, the signature experience is: I don’t feel safe here. You feel excessive amounts of guilt, shame, suffering, low self-esteem and fear.

Not always in a dramatic way. In a quiet, persistent, background way. You don’t feel at home in your body. Digestion is uncomfortable. Eating feels like a chore or a source of your anxiety. You carry tension in your lower abdomen. Pleasure feels muted or guilt-laden. You struggle with shame. Victimization. Unworthiness. A quiet sense that something is fundamentally wrong with you that you can’t name.

Now here’s what’s wild. Look at the physiology of a broken gut and tell me that isn’t the exact same picture.

Gut inflammation activates the vagus nerve in a way that signals threat to the brain. Endotoxin crossing the barrier triggers a cortisol and inflammatory response that keeps the nervous system in low-grade survival mode. The constant discomfort in the abdomen creates a somatic sense of unease that no amount of therapy resolves because the signal is physical. This is the Electric Body- thoughts affect your system directly.

You can do all the inner child work you want. You can journal about shame. You can process victimization narratives in therapy for years. And all of that has its place. But if your gut is leaking endotoxin into your bloodstream every single day, your body will keep generating the feeling of “I am not safe” regardless of what your mind believes. Because the signal isn’t coming from your past. It’s coming from your intestines. Right now. Every meal.

The body is the unconscious mind. Your gut is the seat of instinct. When digestion works- when you eat and feel nourished, warm, satisfied, calm- there’s this deep sense of safety that radiates outward. You feel grounded. Present. At home in your skin. The second energy center opens because the physical foundation it rests on is stable.

Gut health is so complex for this fact; if you don’t work with your emotions while healing- it’s incredibly difficult to heal without leveling up your consciousness.

The best way to do this is by increasing metabolism in conjunction with nervous system regulation and challenging your limiting beliefs. Peat said it best…

“Raising your body temperature makes it easier to create new levels of being.”

What Actually Drives Poor Gut Health

Conventional medicine says gut problems come from “bad diet” or “stress” and prescribes PPIs, antacids, and fiber supplements. That’s like throwing away your bills because you don’t want to see the debt. It still doesn’t go away.

But what you need to know is that the gut fails when cellular energy fails. The intestinal lining turns over every 3-5 days. It is the fastest-regenerating tissue in the body. That regeneration is ATP-dependent. When energy production drops- from low thyroid, poor nutrition, chronic stress- the gut is the first tissue to suffer because it has the highest energy demand. This is why you often see people who have dieted forever or obsessed with maintaining a “lean” body image who inevitably develop gut issues- their energy production has lowered.

A broken gut is not a gut problem. It’s a whole-body energy deficit expressing itself where the demand is highest.

The drivers:

Endotoxin and LPS overload. Gram-negative bacteria produce lipopolysaccharide as part of their cell wall. When these bacteria overgrow- from poor motility, low stomach acid, antibiotic use- LPS levels spike. People with SIBO have tenfold higher levels of LPS in the portal circulation. That endotoxin crosses into the bloodstream, triggers systemic inflammation, raises cortisol, suppresses thyroid, and perpetuates the very gut dysfunction that created it. The cycle feeds itself.

Estrogen dominance and phytoestrogens. Excess estrogen slows gut motility, promotes water retention in tissues, and feeds bacterial overgrowth. Phytoestrogens from soy, flax, and certain grains mimic estrogen in the body. Estrogen recirculates through the gut via beta-glucuronidase from bad bacteria. More estrogen means slower gut. Slower gut means more bacterial overgrowth. More overgrowth means more estrogen recirculation. Another vicious cycle.

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Seed oils- canola, soybean, corn, sunflower- are stored in every tissue including the gut lining. They oxidize easily, generating lipid peroxides that damage the intestinal barrier. They suppress thyroid function. They increase prostaglandin-mediated inflammation. PUFAs in your gut lining are like building a wall out of wet cardboard. The structure fails under any stress. And they take years to clear from tissue storage. This is where my issues originated after losing 100lbs of fat and dumping years of fast food into my system. Wish I knew this haha.

Low thyroid function. Hypothyroidism slows everything. Gut motility drops. Stomach acid production decreases. Bile flow reduces. Pancreatic enzyme output declines. The entire digestive cascade depends on adequate thyroid hormone. Without it, food sits. Bacteria feed. Gas builds. Inflammation rises. This is why so many hypothyroid patients have concurrent SIBO, constipation, and bloating- the gut simply doesn’t have the energy to move.

Processed foods, irritants, and fake health foods. Emulsifiers in processed food directly damage the mucosal layer protecting the gut lining. Protein bars with sugar alcohols (maltitol, sorbitol, erythritol) ferment violently in the gut, feeding bacterial overgrowth. “Healthy” shakes loaded with artificial sweeteners disrupt the microbiome within days. Sucralose, aspartame, acesulfame-K- all shown to alter bacterial populations and increase intestinal permeability. The food that markets itself as healthy is often the most destructive to the gut.

Extreme fiber approaches. High-fiber vegan diets overwhelm a compromised gut with fermentable substrate. The bacteria feast. Gas production skyrockets. Bloating becomes unbearable. On the other end, zero-fiber carnivore diets remove all prebiotic material, starving beneficial bacteria and eliminating the binding fiber that carries endotoxin and estrogen out of the body. Both extremes damage the gut for different reasons. The answer is somewhere in the middle- targeted, strategic fiber from the right sources.

Cortisol and chronic stress. Cortisol redirects blood flow away from the gut. It thins the intestinal lining. It reduces secretory IgA- the gut’s immune defense. It slows motility. Every mechanism I described in my cortisol article (Read here) applies here directly. Chronic stress doesn’t just affect your gut. It dismantles it.

Pesticides and glyphosate. Glyphosate- the active ingredient in Roundup- was patented as an antibiotic before it was a herbicide. It kills bacteria. Including the beneficial bacteria in your gut. It chelates minerals. It disrupts the shikimate pathway in gut bacteria that produces essential amino acids. Conventional produce is coated in it. It’s in the water supply. You’re consuming low-dose antibiotics with every non-organic meal and wondering why your microbiome is wrecked.

Mold and mycotoxins. Coffee. Grains. Nuts. Dried fruits. Poorly stored foods. All common sources of mycotoxins- toxic metabolites produced by mold. These directly damage the gut lining, suppress immune function, and promote fungal overgrowth (candida). Your morning coffee could be delivering a mycotoxin load that inflames your gut before breakfast even arrives.

Low protein diets. The gut lining regenerates every 3-5 days. That regeneration requires amino acids- specifically glutamine, glycine, and proline. Low protein intake starves the gut of its building materials. The lining thins. Permeability increases. The barrier fails. You cannot maintain intestinal integrity on 50g of protein a day. The gut eats first.

No safety in the body. Chronic emotional states of shame, fear, guilt, victimization- these aren’t abstractions. They produce measurable physiological changes. Vagal tone drops. Blood flow to the gut decreases. Stomach acid production plummets. The gut tightens, spasms, slows. People who have experienced trauma often carry it in the gut long after the mind has “processed” it. The body keeps the score. The gut keeps the tab.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

*This list is made in order of priorities, so start with 1, solve it, go to 2, solve it, and so on. Each one adds a layer of healing. Start simple.

The 13 Ways to Fix Gut Health For Good

1. Quit the Junk. For Real This Time.

This isn’t sexy. It’s not a hack. It’s the foundation everything else rests on.

Seed oils, artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, protein bars with 15 ingredients, “sugar-free” products sweetened with maltitol, fast food fried in canola, protein shakes with sucralose- all of it goes. Not some of it. All of it.

Every one of these directly damages the gut lining, disrupts the microbiome, or feeds pathogenic bacteria. You cannot supplement your way out of a diet that’s actively destroying your intestines.

This is where 80% of people fail. They add probiotics and glutamine and digestive enzymes while still eating the things that broke the gut in the first place. That’s like working to patch a roof while drilling new holes in it.

Solution: Eat single-ingredient whole foods for 30 days. Meat. Potatoes. Rice. Eggs. Fruit. Seafood. Dairy if tolerated. Cooked vegetables. Salt. Butter. Bone broth. If it has a nutrition label with more than three ingredients, put it back. This alone resolves more gut issues than any supplement protocol.

2. Restore Thyroid Function

“SIBO has been found in more than 50 percent of people with a history of hypothyroidism” -William Davis, Super Gut

This is the intervention nobody connects to gut health. And it might be the most important one on this list.

Your gut is the most metabolically active tissue in your body. It turns over its entire lining every 3-5 days. That requires enormous amounts of ATP. When thyroid function drops, ATP production drops, and the gut is the first casualty.

Low thyroid means low stomach acid. You can’t break down protein properly. Low thyroid means slow motility. Food sits and ferments. Low thyroid means reduced bile flow. Fats go undigested, feeding the wrong bacteria. Low thyroid means poor enzyme output. Every stage of digestion becomes compromised.

This is why SIBO and hypothyroidism overlap so dramatically. The gut can’t move. Bacteria accumulate. Endotoxin rises. And the endotoxin further suppresses thyroid function- locking you in a cycle that no amount of probiotics will break.

Solution: Get a full thyroid panel (TSH, free T4, free T3, reverse T3). Check body temperature and pulse rate upon waking- below 97.8°F and below 60bpm consistently suggests suboptimal function. Support conversion with adequate carbohydrates, liver, oysters, and eggs. If labs confirm poor T3 production despite good nutrition, work with a practitioner who understands thyroid for hormone replacement. The gut cannot heal without adequate metabolic energy.

(Read This Full Guide to Restore T3 and Thyroid Naturally)

3. Eat the High Energy Diet

Nutrient density is the game. Not restriction. Not elimination. Nutrient. Density.

Your gut lining needs specific raw materials to regenerate: amino acids (glutamine, glycine, proline), zinc, vitamin A, vitamin D, B vitamins, and adequate glucose for the enterocytes that line the intestinal wall. These cells run primarily on glutamine and glucose. Starve them and the barrier breaks.

Red meat provides complete amino acids, zinc, B12, iron, and creatine. Liver provides retinol (vitamin A) in the most bioavailable form- the single most important nutrient for mucosal barrier integrity. Eggs provide choline for bile production and phospholipids for cell membrane repair. Dairy provides calcium to suppress parathyroid hormone (a gut stressor) and easily digestible protein. Potatoes and rice provide glucose for enterocyte fuel without gut irritation. Fruit provides fructose for liver glycogen, vitamin C for collagen synthesis in the gut wall, and potassium for cellular function.

This isn’t about eating “clean” by some arbitrary standard. It’s about providing every raw material the gut needs to rebuild itself. Restriction diets fail because they remove foods without replacing the nutrients those foods provided. The gut doesn’t heal in a deficit. It heals in abundance.

Solution: Center your diet around ruminant meat, organs, eggs, dairy, greens, root vegetables, fruit, soups and broths. 120-180g protein daily from whole food sources (for most of you). Enough carbohydrates to prevent gluconeogenesis. Enough fat for hormone production and appetite satisfaction. Eat enough… please stop starving yourself my friend.

Download this 1 page FREE cheat sheet with everything to eat. Bring it with you to the grocery store. It’s quite helpful.

4. Optimize the Migrating Motor Complex

The migrating motor complex (MMC) is a cyclical wave of muscular contractions that sweeps through the small intestine between meals. Think of it as the gut’s self-cleaning system. It pushes bacteria, debris, and undigested particles downward toward the colon where they belong. A full MMC cycle takes roughly 90-120 minutes. It only activates in a fasted state- when you’re not eating.

When the MMC fails, bacteria accumulate in the small intestine. That’s SIBO. Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. The bacteria that belong in the colon colonize the small intestine, ferment food that should be absorbed, produce gas, endotoxin, and steal your nutrients before you can absorb them. Bloating after meals. Malabsorption. Vitamin deficiencies despite a good diet. All traceable to a broken MMC.

What disrupts the MMC? Constant snacking. Grazing all day. Never letting the gut rest. Stress (cortisol inhibits motility). Low thyroid (reduces the electrical activity driving the contractions). Certain medications. Nerve damage from diabetes or surgery.

Solution: Space meals 3-5 hours apart. Three to five solid meals. No snacking between. This gives the MMC time to complete its cleaning cycles. Adequate thyroid function supports the electrical rhythmicity. Prokinetic agents like ginger (1g before bed) stimulate the MMC directly. Ginger is one of the most evidence-backed prokinetics available- it increases gastric motility and supports the migrating motor complex naturally. (Ginger is amazing for everything btw.)

5. Use Natural Antimicrobials

Before you reach for probiotics- which i’ll touch on shortly- you need to address what’s already overgrown. Adding good bacteria to a gut overrun with pathogenic bacteria is like planting flowers in a yard full of weeds. The weeds win every time.

Natural antimicrobials reduce bacterial overgrowth without the nuclear devastation of pharmaceutical antibiotics. They’re selective. They target pathogenic species while largely preserving beneficial populations.

Raw carrots. The fiber in raw carrots binds endotoxin and estrogen in the intestines. Antibacterial compounds in the carrot peel suppress gram-negative bacteria.

Oregano oil. Contains carvacrol and thymol- two of the most potent natural antibacterial compounds studied. Effective against SIBO-associated bacteria, candida, and parasites. Concentrated and powerful.

White button mushrooms. Antimicrobial and prebiotic simultaneously. They reduce pathogenic populations while feeding beneficial species. These are MIRACLES. I recommend them with boiled, then add olive oil, salt and white vinegar.

Apple cider vinegar. Acetic acid lowers gut pH, creating an environment hostile to pathogenic bacteria. Supports stomach acid function.

Coconut oil. Lauric acid and caprylic acid are naturally antifungal and antibacterial. Particularly effective against candida overgrowth.

Solution: Daily raw carrot salad (shredded with olive oil, salt, and white vinegar). Oregano oil capsules- 500mg 2x daily for 2-4 weeks if active overgrowth suspected. 100-200g cooked white button mushrooms 3-4x weekly. 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar in water before protein-heavy meals. Cook with coconut oil regularly.

“Anything that irritates your intestine or increases bacterial activity in the small intestine can increase the absorption of bacterial endotoxin… Reducing endotoxin might be all it takes to correct the hormones.” -Ray Peat

6. Bind and Remove Endotoxin

“People with SIBO have tenfold higher levels of LPS in the portal circulation” -William Davis, Super Gut

You can kill the bad bacteria. But what about the endotoxin they already produced? LPS doesn’t just disappear when bacteria die. It stays in the gut, leaks through the barrier, and continues driving systemic inflammation, cortisol elevation, and hormonal disruption.

Binders physically trap endotoxin in the intestinal lumen and carry it out before it can cross into circulation. They don’t suppress the immune response. They remove the trigger. That’s a fundamentally different approach- and it’s why binders produce such rapid, noticeable results.

Activated charcoal absorbs LPS, mycotoxins, and bacterial metabolites. Broad-spectrum. Effective. Cheap.

Enterosgel is a selective intestinal adsorbent that binds endotoxin without stripping beneficial nutrients. This was the single most powerful gut intervention I used last year. Within a week: clearer vision, perfect stools, and a palpable drop in baseline stress. Months later the results hold.

Solution: Take between meals, 1-2 hours away from food and supplements. Start with activated charcoal capsules or Enterosgel (1 tsp - 1 tbsp) 2x daily. Increase gradually. Stay hydrated. These pull toxins out- let them.

7. Seal the Gut Lining

Once you’ve cleaned house- reduced overgrowth, bound endotoxin, removed irritants- the gut wall needs to repair. The intestinal lining is one cell thick. Tight junctions between those cells determine what passes through and what stays out. When those junctions loosen, you get intestinal permeability. Leaky gut. The root of systemic inflammation.

Two compounds stand out for directly repairing that barrier:

L-Glutamine is the primary fuel source for enterocytes- the cells that line the small intestine. Under stress, glutamine demand skyrockets. The gut consumes more glutamine than any other tissue in the body. Supplementing provides the building blocks for rapid intestinal cell turnover and tight junction repair.

Zinc Carnosine has been shown to stabilize the gut mucosa, reduce intestinal permeability, and accelerate healing of damaged epithelial tissue. It’s one of the few compounds clinically demonstrated to repair the gut lining at the structural level. The zinc supports immune function simultaneously. The carnosine provides antioxidant protection to the healing tissue.

Solution: L-Glutamine: 5-10g daily, split between morning and evening on an empty stomach. Zinc Carnosine: 75mg 2x daily with meals. Use both for 8-12 weeks during active gut repair. These aren’t lifetime supplements. Short term use. Only use these if you know that’s the issue- don’t throw them on there if diet is not absolutely dialed in first!! Treat them as rebuilding tools when you need them.

8. Introduce Strategic Probiotics (If Metabolism is Good)

Listen, if you have not done everything else above- this stuff will not help you. Metabolism must be in a good place before adding dietary sources of lactic acid.

Random probiotic supplements are mostly useless. A capsule of Lactobacillus sitting on a shelf for six months, surviving stomach acid (maybe), landing in a gut that’s still overrun with pathogenic bacteria- that’s not going to shift anything meaningful.

Two strains stand above the rest:

Lactobacillus reuteri- my top recommendation. Supports stomach acid production, increases oxytocin levels, reduces intestinal inflammation, and accelerates wound healing. It does more for gut function than any other single strain I’ve seen in practice.

Saccharomyces boulardii- a beneficial yeast, not a bacteria. Survives stomach acid and antibiotics. Effective against candida, C. difficile, and acute diarrhea. Produces enzymes that break down bacterial toxins directly. The best option if you’re dealing with fungal overgrowth alongside bacterial issues.

But honestly? Fermented foods are overrated. A touch here and there is fine, like kefir or skyr as good additions, but drinking kombucha all day or slamming probiotics is unnecessary if metabolism is not running well. Not everyone does well with these foods- so experiment. They are a hit or miss. I’ve seen some people eat a bit of kefir and all of sudden they are happy.

For prebiotic fibers: Asparagus, leeks, artichokes, kestose (a fructooligosaccharide) selectively feed Bifidobacterium and Bacteroidota- the bacterial families tied to lower inflammation and better metabolic health. Add these gradually. Too fast or too much endotoxin load and you’ll bloat worse before you feel better.

Solution: Add S. Boulardii or L. Reuteri as strategic options. Introduce prebiotic fibers like asparagus, leeks, artichokes, slowly over 2-4 weeks. The microbiome remodels over weeks to months, not days.

9. Support Digestion with Enzymes and Stomach Acid

Many people with gut issues can’t actually break down their food. They eat a meal and an hour later their stomach is saying feed me again. Not because the food is wrong. Because the machinery is broken.

Stomach acid (HCl) is the first gate. It denatures protein, activates pepsin, kills bacteria in food, and signals the pancreas to release digestive enzymes downstream. When stomach acid is low- from stress, aging, hypothyroidism, PPI use- protein sits in the stomach undigested. Bacteria that should have been killed on contact survive and colonize the small intestine. The entire digestive cascade stalls at step one.

Low thyroid is the biggest hidden driver here. Thyroid hormone directly stimulates parietal cell function- the cells that produce HCl. Hypothyroid patients almost universally have low stomach acid. They supplement with probiotics and glutamine and wonder why nothing works. The food never got broken down in the first place.

Pancreatic enzymes handle the next stage- breaking fats, proteins, and carbohydrates into absorbable units in the small intestine. When pancreatic output is low (again, thyroid-dependent), food passes through partially digested. You see it in the stool. You feel it in the bloating. You measure it in the nutrient deficiencies that persist despite a “perfect” diet.

Betaine HCl restores stomach acid directly. If you feel heavy after protein-rich meals, if you bloat within 30 minutes of eating meat, if you have low thyroid function- this is likely your issue. Start with one capsule with a protein meal. Increase by one capsule per meal until you feel a warm sensation in your stomach, then back off by one. That’s your dose. Some people need 3-5 capsules per meal. That’s not excessive- it’s revealing how depleted they were.

Digestive enzyme blends (protease, lipase, amylase) support pancreatic function while the underlying thyroid and metabolic issues are being addressed. They’re a bridge, not a destination. The goal is restoring your body’s own enzyme production through thyroid optimization and metabolic repair.

Solution: Betaine HCl with pepsin- 1 capsule with protein meals, titrate up as described. Broad-spectrum digestive enzymes with meals during gut repair. If bloating is worst after fatty meals specifically, add ox bile. These are crutches while you fix the engine. Pineapple, papaya and figs contains enzymes that help with digestion if you want a food first approach. Once thyroid function and stomach acid normalize, most people can stop taking.

10. Walk After Meals

Simplest intervention on this list. Probably the most underrated.

A 10-minute walk after eating accelerates gastric emptying, stimulates peristalsis, and reduces postprandial blood sugar spikes. Food moves through faster. Less time for bacterial fermentation. Blood sugar stays stable, meaning less cortisol, meaning less gut disruption.

Walking also activates the parasympathetic nervous system- the rest-and-digest state that blood flow to the gut depends on. You’re physically signaling to your body: we’re safe. Digest this food. Absorb these nutrients. Move things along.

This is ancient. Every traditional culture walked after meals. They didn’t sit at desks. They didn’t collapse on couches. They moved gently, and their digestion worked.

Solution: 10-15 minutes of easy walking after your two largest meals. Not intense. Not a workout. A stroll. Outside in sunlight if possible for the compounded circadian and mood benefits. This alone reduces bloating significantly within days.

11. Gelatin and Collagen

This is the amino acid intervention most people miss entirely. And it might be the most gut-specific protein source that exists.

The modern diet is muscle meat heavy. Steaks. Chicken breast. Ground beef. All excellent protein sources- but all skewed toward methionine and tryptophan at the expense of glycine and proline. Your ancestors ate the whole animal. Skin. Joints. Tendons. Bones. The connective tissue that’s rich in exactly the amino acids your gut lining needs to rebuild.

Glycine is the star. It’s the most abundant amino acid in collagen and one of the primary building blocks of the gut’s mucosal lining. It’s anti-inflammatory- it inhibits NF-kB activation, the master inflammatory switch that endotoxin flips on. It supports bile acid conjugation, which means better fat digestion. It calms the nervous system by acting on inhibitory receptors in the brain. It even improves sleep quality, which is when gut repair happens most aggressively.

Proline and hydroxyproline provide the structural scaffolding for intestinal tissue repair. The gut lining turns over every 3-5 days. That turnover requires a constant supply of these amino acids. Without them, the lining thins. Tight junctions loosen. Permeability increases.

Glycine balances the methionine load from muscle meat. High methionine relative to glycine is pro-inflammatory and increases homocysteine. Adding gelatin or collagen to a meat-heavy diet isn’t optional supplementation- it’s completing the amino acid profile your body expects from animal protein. Your great-grandparents got this automatically from bone broths, stews, and nose-to-tail eating. You have to be intentional about it.

Solution: 10-15g of gelatin or collagen peptides daily. MAKE SOUPS. Bone broth, oxtail, ground beef, beef shank, etc are great sources. Consistent daily intake matters more than dose timing.

12. Sunlight

You don’t think of sunlight as a gut intervention. It is one of the most powerful ones available.

Your gut runs on a circadian clock. Motility, stomach acid production, enzyme secretion, intestinal permeability, microbial composition- all of these oscillate on a 24-hour rhythm. That rhythm is set by light exposure. Specifically, morning sunlight hitting your eyes and skin calibrates the master clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which then synchronizes the peripheral clocks in every organ- including the gut.

When circadian rhythm breaks- from blue light at night, no morning sun, irregular schedules- gut motility becomes erratic. The migrating motor complex loses its rhythm. Stomach acid production drops at wrong times. Intestinal permeability increases at night when it should tighten. Bacterial populations shift toward pathogenic species. Studies on shift workers show dramatically higher rates of IBS, SIBO, and inflammatory bowel conditions. The gut literally falls apart without a coherent light signal.

UV exposure also modulates the microbiome directly. Research shows UV-B radiation increases microbial diversity- particularly Bacteroidota populations associated with reduced inflammation. The light-skin-gut axis is real. Sunlight literally changes which bacteria thrive in your intestines.

And then there’s vitamin D. Not from a capsule. From your skin. Vitamin D regulates intestinal tight junction proteins, supports mucosal immune function, and modulates the inflammatory response in the gut wall. Deficiency is endemic. And no supplement fully replicates what happens when UVB photons hit your skin and trigger the cascade of metabolites that vitamin D supplementation misses entirely.

Solution: 20-30 minutes of direct sunlight. No sunglasses. Skin exposed. This resets the circadian clock that governs gut motility, enzyme production, and microbial rhythm. Cut blue light exposure after sunset- screens, overhead LEDs, anything that tells your brain it’s still daytime. Your gut can’t follow a schedule your eyes aren’t setting.

13. Maintain Oral Hygiene

This is the one nobody talks about. And it connects directly to everything above.

Your mouth is the gateway to your gut. The bacteria in your mouth don’t stay in your mouth. You swallow roughly 1.5 liters of saliva daily- and every pathogenic organism living in your gums, teeth, and tongue rides that saliva straight into your stomach and intestines.

Poor oral hygiene- gum disease, cavities, bacterial biofilms on the tongue- seeds the gut with pathogenic organisms continuously. You can take all the antimicrobials and binders you want, and your mouth will re-inoculate the gut with bad bacteria every single day.

Periodontal bacteria like Porphyromonas gingivalis have been found in gut biopsies of people with IBD and colorectal issues. The oral-gut axis is real. Your mouth flora directly shapes your intestinal flora.

Solution: Brush twice daily. Floss or use a water flosser. Scrape your tongue every morning- the white coating is bacterial biofilm. Consider oil pulling with coconut oil 2-3 times weekly. See a dentist regularly. Your gut health starts in your mouth.

Putting It All Together

Fix the gut from the inside out, not the outside in.

Phase 1 - Remove (Weeks 1-4): Quit the junk. Cut processed foods, seed oils, artificial sweeteners, and gut irritants. Eat the High Energy Diet. Experiment with activated charcoal or Enterosgel. Start daily carrot salad or mushrooms. Add oregano oil if overgrowth is suspected. Cut caffeine if cortisol is high.

Phase 2 - Repair (Weeks 2-8): Begin Betaine HCl & digestive enzymes with meals, or add a bit of papaya. Add gelatinous foods daily. Restore thyroid function. Stay eating the High Energy Diet- nutrient dense, adequate protein, adequate carbohydrates. Space meals to support MMC. Walk after meals. Morning sunlight daily. Fix oral hygiene.

Phase 3 - Reinoculate (Weeks 4-12): Add targeted probiotics (L. reuteri or S. boulardii). Gradually add prebiotic fibers. Monitor symptoms and adjust.

Phase 4 - Maintain (Ongoing): Continue the High Energy Diet. Keep the carrot salad. Maintain meal spacing. Walk after meals. Use Enterosgel/Charcoal as needed during high-stress periods or after dietary indiscretions. Taper digestive enzymes as thyroid and stomach acid normalize. Support thyroid. Manage cortisol.

But the most important? Shift your beliefs and heal the emotional root of your digestion. Meditate. Rest. Play. Forgive yourself. Disconnect from your devices and connect with your Creator. Every. Single. Day. As you do this, every single tool here is 10x more effective.

The High Energy Approach

These 13 interventions work. But if your gut has been broken for months or years, your entire metabolism has adapted around the dysfunction. Nutrient deficiencies compound. Hormonal imbalances layer. Cortisol patterns entrench. The gut-thyroid-cortisol triangle locks into a self-reinforcing cycle that generic protocols can’t untangle.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

I wish that was a joke.

Three summers ago, I came inside from a workout, drenched, rigid and running on fumes. I’d been low carb for months, going hard at work and doing everything that’s “good” for you- yet I felt like an emotionless, unfeeling zombie.

But for whatever reason, I had this craving I couldn’t explain. Not for protein. Not for water. Orange juice. A spiritual calling for ice cold, fresh squeezed sweet orange juice. I hadn’t had a glass of OJ for 10+ years.

I found some at my local farmers market. Poured a glass. Drank it.

What happened next I will never forget.

Immediately, I had a gasp of fresh air. Like my lungs relaxed fully for the first time ever. I sat down, warm and buzzing internally, feeling this subtle sense of euphoria. I made my way over to the bench, sat in the sun, feeling the warmth hit my face and sensing all the gentle currents of wind amongst the crisp trees while the birds made beautiful noise. I was calm. Present. Emotional. And for the first time in my life- I got the feeling I was after from years of mindfulness meditations.

That moment broke something open. Because I realized what I’d been chasing- through the meditation apps, breathwork, therapy, ashwagandha- wasn’t calm. It was the absence of a tension I didn’t even know I was carrying.

You know the feeling. You’re always rushing- not because you’re late, but because there’s never enough time. You can’t just sit somewhere and be there. Your willpower swings between machine and couch and you don’t know why. Underneath all of it, this background hum. Not anxiety exactly. More like you can never fully rest. Never fully land.

You think that’s just your personality.

But it’s not. I know because I fixed it. And the person on the other side was someone I’d never met.

When my cortisol came down, this sense of ease showed up that I didn’t know was available to me. Life got softer without getting smaller. I stopped rushing. My emotions woke up- like finding a room in the house I didn’t know was there. Music hit different. Sunlight hit different. I could feel things I’d been numb to for years.

It felt like meeting my REAL SELF for the first time.

And look at how the world tries to solve this. Meditation apps worth billions. Breathwork retreats. Weighted blankets. Mushroom trips. An entire industry built on the idea that stress lives in your mind- making you feel like you’re fragile.

None of it works. Because if you are not metabolically healthy, psychological tools are not the first answer.

You cannot meditate your way out of unstable blood sugar. You cannot breathe your way through a body inflamed from the gut up. You cannot positive-think your way out of low thyroid function. You cannot microdose your way past a liver running on empty. You must merge these things with a healthy metabolism.

Cortisol isn’t a stress problem. It’s an energy problem. And that’s what I’m going to fix for you right now.

If we learn to see problems in terms of a general disorder of energy metabolism, we can begin to solve them.” -Ray Peat

What Cortisol Actually Is (And Why Everyone Gets It Wrong)

People call cortisol the “stress hormone” and leave it there. Like yeah I get that lol. But that tells you almost nothing. It’s like calling your car engine “the noise maker.” Technically true. Absolutely useless.

But here’s the part nobody explains. Cortisol’s primary job is not to make you feel stressed. Its primary job is to mobilize energy. It breaks down glycogen into glucose. It converts amino acids from muscle tissue into blood sugar through gluconeogenesis. It liberates fatty acids from stored fat. It raises blood glucose so your brain and muscles can function under threat.

Think of it like a generator. Your house runs on electricity from the grid- that’s your thyroid, your mitochondria, your normal metabolic energy production. When the power goes out, the backup generator kicks on. That generator is loud, it burns expensive fuel, it wears down the house and wallet over time- but it keeps the lights on. Cortisol is that generator. It exists to keep you alive when primary energy systems fail.

The problem isn’t the generator. The problem is living on backup power for months or years because nobody fixed the power grid!

What Chronic Cortisol Does to Your Body

“A large percentage of what we think of when we talk about stress-related diseases are disorders of excessive stress-responses.” -Robert M. Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

Acute cortisol saves you. Chronic cortisol destroys you. The difference is duration.

When cortisol stays elevated for weeks, months, years- the same mechanisms that protect you in an emergency start cannibalizing your body from the inside.

It eats your muscle. Cortisol is highly catabolic. It breaks down muscle protein into amino acids so the liver can convert them to glucose. Short-term, this is fine- it’s emergency fuel. Long-term, you’re dissolving your own tissue. This is why chronically stressed people look soft even when they train hard. They’re building muscle in the gym and cortisol is stripping it off the other 23 hours. Progressive overload can’t outrun a catabolic hormone that never stops.

It stores visceral fat. Cortisol specifically deposits fat around your midsection and organs. Not subcutaneous fat you can pinch- visceral fat that wraps around your liver, intestines, and kidneys. This is the most metabolically dangerous fat. It secretes inflammatory cytokines, produces excess estrogen through aromatase, and creates insulin resistance. High cortisol gives you the “stressed belly”- lean arms, lean legs, a gut that won’t budge no matter what you do.

It suppresses thyroid. Cortisol inhibits the conversion of T4 to active T3 and shunts conversion toward reverse T3 instead. Reverse T3 is a metabolic brake- it binds to thyroid receptors without activating them, blocking the real hormone from doing its job. This is why chronically stressed people develop hypothyroid symptoms even with “normal” labs. Their production is fine. But T3 conversion is sabotaged by cortisol.

It wrecks your gut. Cortisol redirects blood flow away from digestive organs toward muscles and brain (survival priorities). Chronically, this thins the intestinal lining, reduces stomach acid production, slows motility, and increases intestinal permeability- leaky gut. Endotoxin leaks through. The immune system reacts. More inflammation. More cortisol. The cycle accelerates.

It tanks your hormones. Cortisol and testosterone compete for the same precursor molecule- pregnenolone. Under chronic stress, the body prioritizes survival over reproduction. Pregnenolone gets shunted toward cortisol production instead of testosterone, DHEA, and progesterone. This is the so called “pregnenolone steal.” Your libido drops. Recovery slows. Morning erections disappear. You lose the anabolic drive that keeps you building, creating, wanting.

It degrades your brain. Cortisol shrinks the hippocampus- the brain region responsible for memory, learning, and emotional regulation. It reduces neuroplasticity. It impairs prefrontal cortex function, which governs decision-making, impulse control, and long-term planning. At the same time, it hyperactivates the amygdala- the brain’s fear center. The result: you can’t think clearly, you can’t remember well, you react to everything emotionally, and you can’t see the bigger picture. Your brain literally rewires for threat detection at the expense of higher cognition.

It destroys sleep. Cortisol and melatonin are inversely related. When cortisol is high, melatonin is suppressed. If cortisol doesn’t drop in the evening, you can’t enter deep sleep. You lay in bed wired. You fall asleep from exhaustion but wake at 3-4am when cortisol surges to rescue dropping blood sugar. Sleep becomes shallow, fragmented, unrestorative. And poor sleep raises cortisol the next day. Another self-reinforcing loop.

It ages you. Cortisol breaks down collagen- the structural protein in your skin, joints, and connective tissue. Chronically elevated cortisol accelerates skin thinning, wrinkle formation, slow wound healing, and joint degradation. It shortens telomeres- the caps on your chromosomes that determine cellular aging. High cortisol literally ages you at the DNA level.

It suppresses immunity. Remember how acute cortisol is anti-inflammatory? Chronic cortisol becomes immunosuppressive. It reduces white blood cell production, weakens antibody response, and impairs your body’s ability to fight infection. This is why people get sick when they’re stressed. Their immune system is running on fumes because cortisol won’t stop suppressing it.

What Chronic Cortisol Does to Your Personality

This is the part nobody talks about. And it might be the most important part for shaping your life.

Cortisol doesn’t just change how your body works. It changes who you are.

The inferiority complex. Elevated cortisol activates the amygdala and suppresses the prefrontal cortex. You lose perspective. You lose the ability to see yourself accurately. Instead, your brain fixates on threats- including social threats. You start comparing. Everyone seems ahead of you. Everyone seems more confident, more successful, more together. This isn’t insecurity as a character trait. This is cortisol literally rewiring your brain to perceive yourself as threatened and inadequate. This is how I was for years, thinking it was simply my personality- but then I came to realize I just had high cortisol. Wow.

The aggression. Cortisol primes the nervous system for defense. Small provocations trigger disproportionate responses. You snap at people you love. Road rage. Irritability over nothing. You feel like you’re always on the verge of a fight. The world feels hostile because your nervous system is interpreting everything through a survival lens. Your biology is telling you danger is everywhere, so you respond to a slow barista the way your ancestors responded to a predator.

The fear. Chronic cortisol makes the amygdala grow. Literally. More neural connections devoted to detecting threat. Less capacity for the rational override that says “this isn’t actually dangerous.” Fear becomes the background frequency. Not screaming-in-terror fear. Low-grade, ever-present fear. Fear of failure. Fear of judgment. Fear of the future. Fear of things you can’t even name. You wake up anxious for no reason. That’s cortisol.

The inability to get present. This one is the signature. High cortisol locks you into time-traveling- mentally living in the future (worry) or the past (regret). You can’t sit in a room without your mind spinning. You can’t eat a meal without planning the next three. You can’t hold a conversation without rehearsing what you’ll say next. Presence requires parasympathetic dominance- the rest-and-digest state. Cortisol keeps you locked in sympathetic overdrive. You’re physically here but mentally you’re never here.

The emotional flatness. After months or years of elevation, cortisol burns out your emotional range. Joy becomes muted. Laughter feels forced. Music doesn’t hit the same. Sunsets don’t move you. You know you should feel something but the signal is dampened. This isn’t depression in the traditional sense. It’s cortisol exhausting your dopamine and serotonin systems, depleting the neurochemicals that produce meaning and pleasure. You’re not sad. You’re depleted.

The rigidity. Cortisol shrinks the prefrontal cortex- the seat of cognitive flexibility, creativity, and openness to new ideas. Under chronic cortisol, you become mentally rigid. You cling to what’s familiar. You resist change. You default to black-and-white thinking. Nuance disappears. You can’t brainstorm. You can’t improvise. You can’t see solutions that are right in front of you. You repeat the same patterns, the same arguments, the same approaches, because your brain literally cannot generate alternatives.

These aren’t personality traits. These are symptoms. Lower the cortisol and the person underneath comes back- THE REAL YOU.

The Spiritual Cost of Cortisol

I don’t usually go here. But this matters.

Cortisol is a survival hormone. It keeps you locked in the lowest level of consciousness- threat, self-preservation, scarcity. Every spiritual tradition describes higher states of being: presence, love, gratitude, connection, awe, surrender. Every tradition also describes what blocks those states: fear, attachment, ego, reactivity.

What if the block isn’t spiritual? What if it’s biochemical?

Think about the moments you’ve felt most connected- to God, to the universe, to whatever you want to call it. You were warm. You were fed. You were safe. You were present. Your body was in a parasympathetic state. Cortisol was low. The nervous system was quiet enough for something deeper to come through.

Now think about the moments you felt most disconnected. You were cold, hungry, inflamed, anxious, reactive. Your body was in survival mode. Cortisol was running the show. And the signal- that still, quiet presence underneath everything- was drowned out by the noise of a nervous system screaming for safety.

Cortisol locks you in the ego. Not in a philosophical sense. In a biological one. When your body perceives constant threat, it narrows your consciousness to self-preservation. Me. Mine. Survive. Every thought becomes about protecting, comparing, defending. There’s no bandwidth for awe. No capacity for surrender. No space to open your heart. You can’t access gratitude when your cells are screaming for glucose. You can’t feel love when your amygdala is firing at everything that moves.

The mystics fasted- but they also feasted. They sat in stillness- but from a body that was warm and nourished and calm. Monks in every tradition eat simple, nutrient-dense food, sleep consistently, live in sunlight, and minimize stimulation. They’re not doing that for discipline. They’re doing it because it lowers cortisol. And when cortisol drops, the signal gets clear.

The body is the antenna. Cortisol is static. You can pray louder, meditate harder, seek more intensely- but if the antenna is full of noise, you won’t receive anything!!! Clean up your biology and connection to Spirit opens on its own.

Ray Peat said it perfectly: “Raising your body temperature makes it easier to create new levels of being.” -Generative Energy Podcast, Ep. #58

That’s not a metaphor. When metabolic rate rises and cortisol drops, your consciousness literally shifts, connecting you to the Unified Field. You become warmer, more open, more present, more capable of mystical moments. The spiritual life isn’t separate from the metabolic life. They’re the same thing operating at different frequencies.

Lower cortisol. Raise your temperature. Watch how your life changes.

What Drives Broken Cortisol (The Bioenergetic View)

Now that you understand what cortisol does when it stays on, here’s why it won’t turn off.

Conventional advice says external stress causes cortisol and you should avoid all stressful situations. That’s backwards. Biology shapes consciousness. Not the other way around. Thinking about lowering all external stress makes you fragile, but this approach makes you resilient. To face challenges. To rise to the occasion. To feel empowered in your life. And that starts with energy production.

Your body produces excess cortisol as a compensation mechanism when cellular energy production fails. Cortisol is the backup generator. It kicks in when ATP drops, when blood sugar crashes, when inflammation rises, when the body perceives threat at the cellular level.

Cortisol is long-term stress. Adrenaline is the short burst- fight or flight, quick and sharp. Cortisol is the slow burn. The one that stays. The one that reshapes everything.

You are always amped up. Whether you know it or not.

The drivers:

Low energy availability. Under-eating, especially carbohydrates. Liver glycogen depletes. Cortisol rises to manufacture glucose from your own tissue.

Unstable blood glucose. Every crash triggers a cortisol rescue spike. Spike, crash, spike, crash, all day. The rollercoaster never stops.

Gut inflammation and endotoxin. LPS from bacterial overgrowth crosses into the bloodstream. The body treats it like an infection. Cortisol stays elevated.

Poor sleep. Fragmented sleep prevents overnight cortisol clearance. The deficit compounds daily.

Chronic inflammation. PUFAs, excess estrogen, autoimmune activity. The fire never goes out.

Environmental stressors. Fluoride, EMFs, blue light, endocrine disruptors in your water, food, and products. You’ve adapted. Your cortisol hasn’t.

Overeating calories with low nutrient density. 3,000 calories of seed oil-laden processed food gives you energy without the cofactors to use it. Malnourished and overfed simultaneously.

Now with that, these 13 interventions fix cortisol at the source.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

The 13 Interventions

1. Meat and Potatoes

“Just give me the meat and potatoes.” Ever wonder why people say this? Why it’s been around for centuries? Because meat and potatoes are the perfect anti-stress meal. It’s the food that matters- the foundation. Warm, salty starch + saturated fats with quality protein. This grounds the nervous system. It’s the first meal I go for when in high stress periods and what I recommend.

Low energy availability is the primary cortisol driver. When liver glycogen depletes, cortisol rises to break down muscle into glucose through gluconeogenesis. Every hour in a fasted, glycogen-depleted state pushes cortisol higher.

Red meat provides complete protein, B vitamins, iron, zinc, creatine- the raw materials for cellular energy production. Potatoes provide nearly 900mg of potassium per medium potato, easily digestible starch that refills liver glycogen, and glucose that your brain and liver desperately need. Together they give your body food-driven energy so it stops relying on stress-driven energy.

Solution: Get to the meat and potatoes. Red meat (beef, lamb, bison) with 1-2 medium potatoes, boiled or baked, salted to taste. Add coconut oil or butter if you need more fat and want more taste and comfort food feeling. Keep portion under control for your metabolism.

2. Sugar/Carbs

Sugar might be the most counterintuitive item on this list. The wellness world demonizes it. But from a bioenergetic perspective, sugar is an A tier substance in your toolkit of stress lowering compounds.

This is why when you are stressed, you often crave sugar or chocolate. And if you have a “sugar addiction”…you likely have chronic stress in some way. This is the body intuitively coping.

When blood sugar drops, your body has two options: eat, or produce cortisol to manufacture glucose internally. If you don’t eat, cortisol wins. It breaks down muscle. It liberates fatty acids. It cranks gluconeogenesis in the liver. All of this produces glucose- but through stress chemistry. The glucose arrives, but so does the inflammatory cascade, the muscle wasting, and the hormonal disruption that come with it.

Sugar- specifically the combination of glucose and fructose found in fruit- refills liver glycogen directly. Fructose is metabolized primarily by the liver and preferentially restores hepatic glycogen stores without a large insulin spike. Glucose provides immediate blood sugar stability. Together they tell your body: there is no famine. There is no emergency. Stand down.

This is why people feel calm after eating carbs. It’s not placebo. It’s cortisol dropping because the liver got what it needed.

The key is timing and context. Sugar in isolation on an empty stomach in a metabolically compromised individual can spike and crash glucose, triggering the exact cortisol response you’re trying to avoid. That is why it’s key to assess and understand your own level of carbohydrate tolerance. Doesn’t work for everyone, but generally the healthier you are, the easier you can tolerate sugars. Think about it… children don’t have sugar issues- they crave it with their youthful metabolism!

Solution: 2-5 servings of fruit daily. Fresh squeezed OJ is as anti-stress as you can get. And if you don’t trust regular sugar yet? Favor starches. Potatoes, basmati rice, gluten free grains and vegetables. Ultimately, just get some carbs in you.

Key note: If you are overweight/insulin resistant or metabolically damaged- you need to assess tolerance. But as your body heals + glucose oxidation picks up- you can use sugar again cleanly.

3. Cut Caffeine

This is my first intervention with anyone who is stressed out of their mind.

In Peat’s perspective, caffeine is highly protective for the metabolic rate. I agree- but only when the metabolism is in order. In real world experience, throwing caffeine on someone who is broken just amps up cortisol.

Caffeine directly stimulates cortisol and adrenaline release. It raises catecholamines. It depletes magnesium- a mineral your nervous system needs to calm down. It disrupts sleep architecture even when you fall asleep fine, preventing cortisol from properly clearing overnight. You wake up with higher baseline cortisol and reach for more caffeine to compensate. The cycle never breaks.

Caffeine borrows energy from tomorrow and the bill comes with interest. If your cortisol is chronically elevated, caffeine is gasoline on fire. You’re using a stress hormone stimulant to manage the symptoms of excess stress hormones.

Solution: Quit cold turkey and face 2-5 days of headaches, low energy and sleepiness. Replace with tea or bone broth. You’ll feel worse for a few days, then better than you have in years. I know you don’t want to hear this. Do it anyway.

Once you restore energy metabolism and have turned off chronic stress- you can add coffee back as it is quite stimulating for the metabolic rate. Just have the mineral reserves to use it or pair with sugar/meal.

4. Activated Charcoal / Enterosgel

Bacterial endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) leaks from the gut into the bloodstream and triggers systemic inflammation. The body treats it like an infection. Cortisol surges. This is the gut-brain axis at work- your mood, your anxiety, your ability to handle stress all trace back to what’s happening in your intestines.

Activated charcoal and Enterosgel bind LPS in the gut before it crosses into circulation. They trap the endotoxin and carry it out. This is one of the fastest interventions for lowering biological stress because it removes the inflammatory trigger directly rather than trying to suppress the response.

Enterosgel was the most powerful intervention for me last year after learning from Hans Amato (recommend reading his Substack too) within 7 days, I could see better, ghost wipes stools and I felt a big sense of relief from stress reduction. It was euphoric and still is months later.

Solution: Take between meals, 1-2 hours away from food and supplements. Activated charcoal capsules or Enterosgel. Start with small doses (1 tsp - 1tbsp) 2x a day.

“Anything that irritates your intestine or increases bacterial activity in the small intestine can increase the absorption of bacterial endotoxin, and that lowers testosterone and thyroid hormone, and increases cortisol. Reducing endotoxin might be all it takes to correct the hormones.” - Ray Peat

5. Raw Carrots, Mushrooms, and Bamboo Shoots

Endotoxin and excess estrogen recirculate through enterohepatic circulation, continuously driving cortisol and inflammation. Estrogen directly opposes progesterone- your body’s primary anti-cortisol hormone. When estrogen dominates, cortisol runs unopposed.

Insoluble fiber from raw carrots binds endotoxin and estrogen in the intestines before bacterial enzymes can deconjugate them. Antibacterial compounds in carrot peel reduce populations of endotoxin-producing bacteria. White button mushrooms and bamboo shoots work through similar binding mechanisms. Together they scrub the gut of the compounds that keep your stress response locked on.

Solution: 1-2 raw carrots daily (Carrot salad: Shredded with coconut oil, salt, and vinegar). 100-200g cooked white button mushrooms or bamboo shoots 2-3 times weekly.

“While lowering estrogen, it is likely to lower cortisol and increase progesterone.” - Ray Peat

6. Progesterone

Progesterone directly opposes cortisol at the receptor level. It’s the body’s built-in anti-anxiety molecule. When progesterone drops- from chronic stress, aging, nutrient deficiency, or excess estrogen- cortisol fills the void unopposed. This creates a vicious cycle: stress depletes progesterone, low progesterone removes the brake on cortisol, elevated cortisol depletes progesterone further.

Restoring progesterone breaks the cycle at the hormonal level. It calms the nervous system, supports GABA activity, promotes deep sleep, and directly counterbalances the catabolic effects of cortisol. DHEA works alongside it- restoring the youth hormones that buffer the entire stress response.

Solution: Work with a knowledgeable practitioner to assess progesterone and DHEA levels. Topical progesterone and oral DHEA are common interventions. Support natural production first through adequate cholesterol intake (eggs, dairy), vitamin A (liver), and reducing the estrogen load (carrots, fiber, lower body fat). Progest-E is my top recommendation for progesterone.

Quick Pause- High Energy Coaching

Everything here works. But if your cortisol has been running the show for months or years, a Substack article gives you the map. Coaching gives you tactical personalization.

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Book your discovery call here.

Now. Back to the interventions.

7. Calcium and the Calcium-to-Phosphate Ratio

This is a core principle in Peat inspired nutrition.

Inadequate calcium raises parathyroid hormone (PTH). Elevated PTH is a stress hormone in its own right- it increases intracellular calcium dysregulation, promotes inflammation, activates the stress response, and directly drives cortisol up. Most people are calcium deficient and don’t know it. The body pulls calcium from bones to maintain blood levels, masking the deficiency while PTH stays chronically elevated in the background, silently amplifying every other stressor.

But here’s the piece almost nobody talks about: it’s not just about calcium intake. It’s about the calcium-to-phosphate ratio.

Phosphorus competes with calcium. When you eat high-phosphorus foods without enough calcium to balance them- which is exactly what happens on a high-meat, low-dairy diet- the excess phosphate raises PTH even if your total calcium intake looks adequate on paper. The ratio matters more than the absolute number.

Meat is high in phosphorus. So are grains, nuts, and seeds. If you’re eating 200g+ of protein daily from meat without balancing it with calcium from dairy, you’re driving PTH up every single meal. Your body interprets this mineral imbalance as metabolic stress. Cortisol rises to manage it.

Dairy solves this elegantly. Milk has a calcium-to-phosphorus ratio near 1.3:1- almost ideal for suppressing PTH and maintaining cellular calcium homeostasis. The calcium arrives with riboflavin and B12 that support mitochondrial electron transport. The combination provides energy substrate, suppresses the parathyroid stress axis, and calms intracellular calcium signaling simultaneously.

Solution: 1-2 cups of milk daily if tolerated- straight, in coffee, or blended into shakes. Skyr yogurt and cheese count. If lactose intolerant, use calcium-rich alternatives like eggshell calcium. The critical point: match your calcium to your phosphorus load. The more meat you eat, the more dairy (or supplemental calcium) you need to balance it.

8. Thyroid Optimization

Low thyroid means low ATP. Low ATP means your body can’t produce enough cellular energy to meet demand. When energy production fails, cortisol steps in as the backup generator- breaking down tissue, mobilizing glucose, keeping you alive through stress chemistry instead of metabolic efficiency. You’re running on emergency power.

Optimizing thyroid function- specifically T4-to-T3 conversion- restores the primary energy system so cortisol can stand down. This requires adequate liver glycogen, specific mineral cofactors (zinc, copper, selenium), and low inflammatory load. A well-functioning thyroid is the single most powerful anti-stress intervention that exists.

Solution: Support conversion naturally first- adequate carbohydrates, liver, oysters and eggs. If labs, body temp and pulse rate show suboptimal T3 despite good nutrition, work with a practitioner who understands thyroid and begin thyroid therapy or source some natural desiccated thyroid.

Read my Full Guide here on how to restore your Thyroid and T3 Production.

9. Aspirin

Chronic inflammation drives chronic cortisol. Prostaglandins from PUFA metabolism create a self-sustaining inflammatory loop- tissue inflammation triggers cortisol, cortisol mobilizes more PUFAs from stored tissue, those PUFAs oxidize into more prostaglandins, and cortisol rises again to suppress the new inflammation. The cycle feeds itself.

Aspirin breaks this loop. It reduces prostaglandin-mediated inflammation directly. It increases cellular T3 by displacing thyroid hormone from binding proteins- increasing the unbound, active fraction by 50-75%. More active T3 means more ATP. More ATP means less cortisol compensation. The anti-inflammatory and pro-thyroid effects compound.

Solution: 325-500mg. Some reports show uses up to 2-4g (not saying you need that at all haha) This is higher than the 81mg 'baby aspirin' dose. Start low, work up, and do your own research. Always take with vitamin K to support clotting factors. This is not a one-time intervention- consistent use breaks the inflammatory cycle over a week or two. Avoid long term use.

Alternative: If you don’t or can’t use aspirin- go for ginger. Ginger is the next best alternative i’ve found.

10. Sunlight

Blue light exposure at night suppresses melatonin and delays the cortisol decline that should happen in the evening. Lack of daytime sunlight disrupts the entire circadian cortisol curve. Your body loses the signal for when to be alert and when to rest. Cortisol becomes chaotic- spiking and dropping at wrong times, never following the clean morning-peak-to-evening-trough pattern that healthy metabolism requires.

Direct sunlight is anxiolytic. It increases serotonin, vitamin D, and dopamine through mechanisms no supplement replicates. Morning light exposure resets the circadian clock so cortisol follows its natural rhythm- high when you need it, low when you don’t. This single intervention fixes sleep, mood, and stress response simultaneously.

Solution: 20-30 minutes of direct sunlight within 30 minutes of waking. No sunglasses. Skin exposed. Get outside- window glass blocks the UV wavelengths that drive vitamin D synthesis. Combine with a morning walk for compounded benefit. Cut blue light after sunset.

11. Niacinamide

When cortisol mobilizes stored fat for energy, those free fatty acids create their own inflammatory cascade. The fat itself becomes a stressor- oxidizing, generating reactive oxygen species, and demanding more cortisol to suppress the inflammation it created. This is why stressed people accumulate visceral fat. The cortisol-fat mobilization-inflammation loop is self-reinforcing.

Niacinamide (vitamin B3) lowers free fatty acid release, breaking the loop at the mobilization step. It supports NAD+ production for mitochondrial energy- giving cells fuel through proper metabolism rather than stress-driven fat breakdown. More efficient energy production means less cortisol demand.

Solution: 100-200mg niacinamide, 2-3 times daily with meals. Avoid more than 500mg a day if actively losing weight as over than can potentially block excess lipolysis.

12. Red Light Therapy

Near-infrared and red light increase cytochrome c oxidase activity in mitochondria- the final enzyme in the electron transport chain that produces ATP. More ATP means more cellular energy through proper metabolic channels. More proper energy means less cortisol compensation.

This isn’t the same as the red light panels marketed for skin care. This is targeted mitochondrial support. When your cells produce energy efficiently, the backup generator (cortisol) has no reason to run. Red light therapy accelerates the transition from stress-driven metabolism to clean, oxidative energy production.

Solution: 10-20 minutes daily on exposed skin. Sit under red light while working. Consistent use, not occasional. Morning or midday is ideal. Combine with sunlight exposure for compounded benefit.

13. Face the Stressor

Everything above addresses the biological drivers. But there’s a final piece that biology alone won’t solve.

The thing you keep avoiding? The conversation, the decision, the confrontation, the career change, the relationship truth? That avoidance is a cortisol factory running 24/7 in the background. Your body holds unresolved stress in your tissues. The anticipation is always worse than the thing itself. One hard conversation can drop cortisol more than a month of supplements.

Elevated emotions- peace, joy, laughter, genuine inspiration- aren’t soft interventions. They shift your nervous system from sympathetic to parasympathetic. They lower inflammatory markers. They change gene expression. Flow states drop cortisol to near zero.

The bioenergetic approach is subtraction through addition. Add so many sources of genuine energy- food, hormones, sunlight, movement, connection, purpose- that your body no longer needs cortisol as compensation. Lower the internal stressors to handle the external ones naturally.

That’s resilience.

Solution: Do the hard thing you’ve been avoiding this week. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Protect your flow states. Reduce screen time. Stop consuming content that enrages you. This isn’t woo- it’s physiology.

“Raising your body temperature makes it easier to create new levels of being.” - Ray Peat

Putting It All Together

Fix cortisol from the bottom up, not the top down.

Breakfast: High protein, adequate fat, moderate carbs. Eggs, skyr yogurt, fruit, raw milk. Never skip it. Fasting is a stressor.

Meals: 3-5 balanced meals. 120-180g protein. Enough fats for appetite control. Enough carbs to avoid ketosis and gluconeogenesis. No long gaps between meals.

Timing: Hard things before noon when cortisol is naturally high. Lower-intensity activity after. Wind down in the evening. Protect the cortisol taper.

Carb timing: If you’re actively stressed with insulin issues, avoid massive carb meals. Eat balanced- protein, fat, moderate carbs together. Save larger carb portions for when you’re calm.

You can’t drug yourself out of high cortisol. You can’t supplement your way out. You can’t meditate, breathe, or microdose your way out.

You solve it by giving your body so much genuine energy that stress chemistry becomes unnecessary. Biology first. Consciousness follows.

The High Energy Approach

These 13 interventions work. But if cortisol has been running your biology for months or years, your body has adapted to stress as its operating system. Unwinding that takes precision.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Do your own research, work with someone qualified, and don't outsource your health decisions to anyone- including me. This is a starting point, not a prescription.

Cold plunges. Float tanks. Red light panels. Grounding mats. Breath-work. A $300/month supplement drawer that looked like a pharmacy exploded in my bathroom. I listened to every biohacking podcast. Dave Asprey + Bryan Johnson as my guru’s. Tried peptides, carnivore, keto, high-fat, time-restricted eating… every metabolic protocol the internet could sell me.

But my free T3 was 2.0 pg/mL the entire time.

Body temperature under 97°F and resting pulse at 32 bpm. Brain never focused on tasks. Fat cemented to my frame no matter how little I ate. I looked like someone who didn’t care. The truth was the opposite- I cared so much I’d tried everything. Everything except the one thing that mattered.

When I stopped chasing hacks and started feeding my thyroid what it actually needed- the minerals, the carbohydrates, the liver support, the gut repair- my free T3 climbed from 2.0 to 4.4 pg/mL in 16 weeks. My pulse went from 32 to 65. Warmth came back into my hands. The fog broke. Fat dropped without restriction. I felt like I’d been given a new body.

This article is the complete map. Not just food. Not just supplements. Hormones, neurotransmitters, herbs, gut health, cellular transport- every lever you can pull to raise active thyroid hormone naturally. Each one follows the same format: the problem it fixes, why it works, and exactly how to use it.

This is the article I wish existed when I was at my worst- fat, low energy and praying to God for a solution to make me feel alive again.

How to Know If Your T3 Is Low

You already know.

You’ve known for months. Maybe years. You just didn’t have the language for it, and every doctor you’ve seen told you your labs are “normal.”

Here’s what normal looks like when your T3 is in the gutter:

You set your alarm for 7. You open your eyes and feel like you slept two hours. Not groggy… empty. Like someone drained your battery overnight and left the casing. You lie there for ten minutes because the idea of standing up feels unreasonable. Sleep back until 8. Then you finally crawl out of bed. You go coffee because without it you’re not a person. By 11 AM you’re already thinking about a nap. By 2 PM you’d sell a kidney for a bed. By evening you get a strange second wind- wired but exhausted- and you can’t fall asleep until midnight. Repeat. Every day. For months.

Your brain used to be fast. Sharp. Now it takes you three attempts to remember the word you’re looking for. You walk into rooms and stand there- blank. You read a paragraph and realize at the bottom you absorbed nothing. You read it again. Same result. Complex tasks that used to energize you now feel like climbing a wall covered in oil. You make stupid mistakes. You know they’re stupid while you’re making them. You start wondering if this is early cognitive decline. Something degenerative. Something permanent.

Your body doesn’t respond to anything you do. You train hard and recover slower. You eat less and the scale doesn’t move. You eat even less and gain weight- your body hoarding every calorie like it’s preparing for a famine that already arrived. Your midsection thickens. Your face puffs. Your jawline softens. You look in the mirror and see someone ten years older staring back. Muscle won’t grow. Fat won’t leave. You’re doing everything right and your body is doing everything wrong.

Hair falls out in the shower. More on the pillow in the morning than you want to count. The outer third of your eyebrows thins until it’s barely there. Your skin is dry, pale, almost translucent. Nails are weak. Beauty is a rapidly disappearing from your once youthful body.

Your digestion stopped working. Everything you eat sits like cement. Bloating is constant- not occasional, constant. Constipation becomes something you just accept as part of your life. Food that used to agree with you now creates war in your stomach.

And the worst part- the part nobody talks about- is the emotional deadening. The world loses color. Literal color. Everything looks grey. Music doesn’t move you. Sunsets are just sunsets. You laugh less. You feel less. You watch your kids play and feel distant from the moment, like you’re observing your own life from a non-HD movie. You wonder if this is depression. It might be. But it might also be a hormone deficiency wearing a psychiatric mask- and no SSRI in the world fixes a thyroid problem.

Broda Barnes was measuring thyroid function with a thermometer in the 1940s while modern medicine was still decades away from the TSH assay. He found that basal body temperature below 97.8°F identified hypothyroidism more reliably than any blood test- a finding that still holds today, eighty years later. Your doctor looks at a TSH result. Barnes would have looked at you.

“More gruesome in my opinion are the patients - often young women - who are berated and told it is all in their head... They manifest every sign of hypothyroidism but ‘the test is normal.’” - Broda Barnes, Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness (1976)

If this sounds like your life, your T3 is almost certainly suboptimal. TSH above 2.5, free T3 below 3.5 pg/mL, or elevated reverse T3? That’s the lab confirmation of what your body already screamed at you.

Why T3 Changes Everything

T3 isn’t just another hormone. It’s the master switch. Every cell in your body carries thyroid receptors. Every mitochondrion depends on T3 to produce ATP at full capacity. When T3 reaches optimal levels, you don’t just feel better- you become a different version of yourself. The version that was always there, buried under metabolic suppression.

Albert Szent-Györgyi understood something that modern medicine still hasn’t fully absorbed: cellular energy production isn’t a side effect of health. It is health. T3 drives that production. Without it, every cell in your body operates at partial capacity. With it, the entire system comes online.

Your metabolism becomes a furnace. Basal metabolic rate climbs. You burn more energy sitting in a chair than you used to burn on a treadmill. You eat more food and stay leaner. Body temperature locks in at 98.6°F- warm hands, warm feet, warm all the time. Fat loss that seemed impossible under restriction happens almost effortlessly when the metabolic rate is actually running. The body wants to be lean. It just needs the energy signal to get there. Restriction never provides that signal. T3 does.

“The simple fact is that when the thyroid is functioning properly, the weight is proper.” -Broda Barnes

Your brain unlocks. Fog doesn’t lift gradually- it breaks. like a window opening in a room that’s been sealed for years. Words come fast. Ideas connect laterally. You think in three dimensions again. Creativity doesn’t just return- it surges. Complex problems that paralyzed you become interesting. You read faster, retain more, and your working memory sharpens to a point you forgot was possible. The cognitive version of you that existed at your peak? That person is the baseline now.

Your body composition transforms. Muscle responds to training again. Progressive overload actually produces progressive results. Fat leaves stubborn areas- lower belly, love handles, chest- that haven’t changed in years regardless of what you did. You look harder at the same body weight. The puffiness drains from your face. Your jawline reappears. People notice and ask what you’re doing differently. The answer is simpler than they expect.

Your hormones cascade upward. T3 stimulates 5-alpha reductase, driving DHT higher. LH rises, pulling testosterone with it. DHEA-S normalizes. Prolactin drops. Estrogen clears properly through the liver. The entire endocrine system reorganizes when thyroid function leads. You don’t need to fix ten hormones. You need to fix the one that governs the other nine.

Your digestion comes alive. Transit time normalizes. Bloating disappears. Nutrient absorption improves so dramatically that the same food produces better results. You eat more, extract more, and waste less. The gut motility that stalled for months restarts. Constipation becomes a memory.

Your emotional world opens back up. This is the one nobody warns you about because it sounds too good. When T3 comes back, YOU FEEL ALIVE AGAIN. Music hits different- you’ll catch yourself tearing up in the car over a song you’ve heard a hundred times. Colors sharpen. Conversations have depth and warmth you forgot they could carry. You laugh from your belly. You cry at things that matter and it feels good to cry because it means you’re feeling. The glass wall between you and your life dissolves. Relationships deepen because you’re actually present for them- not performing presence while you’re numb behind your eyes.

Your stress resilience returns. Cortisol regulation normalizes. Resting heart rate stabilizes. Palpitations stop. You handle pressure without the internal shaking and flooding anxiety. Things that used to send you spiraling become manageable problems with clear solutions. You respond to stress instead of being consumed by it.

Synchronicities start appearing. I know how this sounds. I don’t care. When your cells are producing energy efficiently, when your nervous system is regulated and your hormones are balanced, your perception sharpens in ways that are difficult to explain through mechanism alone. You notice patterns you missed. Connections appear between things that seemed unrelated. Opportunities arrive with timing that feels orchestrated. The right person shows up. The right idea lands. The right door opens.

Call it God. Call it the Universe. Call it heightened pattern recognition operating at full neural capacity because your brain finally has the ATP to run its complete software. The label doesn’t matter. The experience is real and consistent- i’ve seen it in myself and in every client whose T3 normalized.

Your connection to something larger deepens. Every contemplative tradition- Christian mystics, Vedic yogis, Taoist sages, Sufi poets- describes the body as a vessel for spiritual experience. They speak of prana, chi, ruach, pneuma- the breath of life, the vital force. What they were pointing at, in biochemical terms, is cellular energy. A vessel running at 60% capacity doesn’t receive the signal clearly. When your metabolism is fully online- when every cell is producing the ATP it was designed to produce- there is a clarity, a stillness, a presence that becomes available. It’s not that God shows up when your thyroid works. It’s that you can finally hear what was always there.

“Prana is the breath of life of all beings in the universe. They are born through it and live by it, and when they die their individual breath dissolves into the cosmic breath.” - Atharvaveda

“The energy of life is the essence of life.” - Hans Selye

T3 is the difference between surviving and being fully, electrically alive. That’s not poetry. That’s biochemistry meeting lived experience.

The Science You Need (and Nothing You Don’t)

Your thyroid gland produces mostly T4 - the inactive storage form. T4 is the raw material. T3 is the finished product that actually binds receptors and changes gene expression in every cell of your body.

The conversion from T4 to T3 happens primarily in the liver (about 60%), with contributions from the kidneys, skeletal muscle, and gut. Enzymes called deiodinases perform this conversion. D1 and D2 activate T4 into T3. D3 does the opposite- it inactivates both hormones and converts T4 into reverse T3, the metabolic brake.

Emil Baumann isolated iodine from thyroid tissue in 1896. Within a decade, physicians were using crude thyroid gland extracts to treat myxedema- the severe hypothyroidism that left patients swollen, cold, and mentally dulled. The extract worked. The principle hasn’t changed in 130 years: give the body what the thyroid needs, and the body heals. What’s changed is our understanding of what it needs- and how many steps exist between hormone production and hormone action.

Most of your T3 travels through blood bound to carrier proteins. Only about 0.3% circulates free - and that tiny free fraction is the only part that enters cells and activates genes. The total amount matters less than how much is unbound and available.

Here’s what trips people up: blood levels don’t always reflect tissue levels. Your liver, brain, and kidneys can be severely depleted of T3- as low as 1–6% of baseline- while blood work shows numbers in the “normal” range. This is why you can have textbook labs and still feel hypothyroid. The serum is a snapshot. The tissue is the reality.

Three things must be in place for conversion to work: the liver needs glycogen (energy substrate), the deiodinase enzymes need mineral cofactors (zinc, copper, selenium), and the inflammatory load must be low enough that the pathway isn’t blocked.

Miss any one of these and T4 accumulates while T3 stays in the gutter.

Everything that follows targets one or more of these levers.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

Part 1: Hormones, Neurotransmitters and Forgotten Proteins

1. Klotho

Problem: Thyroid hormone levels are unstable. Small changes in input produce outsized swings in T3. The system lacks a stabilizer.

Mechanism: Klotho- a protein tied to aging, longevity, and metabolic regulation - appears to buffer thyroid hormone levels within a healthy range. Research shows an L-shaped nonlinear relationship: below a certain klotho threshold, T3 fluctuations become more dramatic and erratic. Above that threshold, klotho acts as a fine-tuning mechanism that keeps T3 regulation steady.

Solution: Exercise is the primary driver. A 16-week training program showed significant klotho increases, with younger individuals responding more than older ones. Insulin supports klotho production, adding another penalty to chronic low-carb dieting. Vit D, lowering dietary tryptophan + phosphate and activated charcoal are helpful as well.

2. IGF-1

Problem: The thyroid isn’t responding to TSH proportionally. TSH keeps climbing but hormone output doesn’t match - the gland seems deaf to the pituitary’s signal.

Mechanism: The TSH receptor and IGF-1 receptor physically interact on thyroid cells - they form a functional complex. When IGF-1 is adequate, it amplifies TSH receptor sensitivity: the thyroid responds to lower levels of TSH and produces hormones more efficiently. When IGF-1 is low, the thyroid needs progressively more TSH to generate the same output. This is why IGF-1 and T3 tend to decline together and why restoring one frequently rescues the other.

Solution: IGF-1 is more often a downstream marker of inadequate T3 than a root cause. Optimize T3 first. Ensure medium/high protein diet, total calories, and insulin signaling - minimum 150g carbs daily. Milk and dairy- especially raw- is one of the best ways to raise IGF-1. If fasting insulin runs under 4 µU/mL, eat more carbohydrates.

3. Noradrenaline and Brown Fat

Problem: Your thermogenesis is weak. Cold exposure doesn’t produce the warming response it should. Brown adipose tissue - the body’s built-in heater - isn’t activating properly.

Mechanism: Brown fat is packed with DIO2, the enzyme that converts T4 to T3 locally. This conversion ramps up when noradrenaline binds β3-adrenergic receptors on brown fat cells, triggering a cAMP cascade that dramatically increases D2 activity and on-site T3 production. The T3 produced locally amplifies the heat-generating response right where it’s needed. Researchers confirmed this by pharmacologically depleting catecholamines - the cold-induced T3 surge disappeared entirely. But direct noradrenaline administration still worked, proving that sympathetic signaling- not the cold itself- is the trigger that matters.

Solution: Brief cold exposure paired with healthy adrenal function. Your nervous system must be capable of mounting a proper catecholamine response - if you’re adrenally depleted, cold exposure is just stress with no upside! Fix the adrenals first. Then use cold as a tool, not a punishment.

4. Cortisol

Problem: Either too little cortisol or too much. Both wreck T3 through different mechanisms. Too little means D1 stays suppressed and D3 stays elevated - less T3 produced, more T3 cleared. Too much suppresses TSH entirely and shunts T4 toward reverse T3.

Mechanism: At the right concentration, cortisol upregulates D1 and suppresses D3 - the ideal enzymatic environment for T3 production. Multiple systems converge on cortisol output: growth hormone and ACTH drive adrenal release, oxytocin amplifies ACTH’s effect, and serotonin enhances CRH synthesis in the hypothalamus.

Selye described three stages of the stress response in 1936 - alarm, resistance, exhaustion. What he mapped in those stages, translated into thyroid terms, is the progressive suppression of T3 under chronic load. The alarm phase mobilizes cortisol to support conversion. The resistance phase maintains it at a cost. The exhaustion phase - what we now call adrenal fatigue with secondary hypothyroidism - is where cortisol collapses and T3 follows it into the floor.

Solution: If cortisol runs low, support adrenal function with vitamin C and pantothenic acid (B5). Boost oxytocin naturally - L. reuteri, vitamin C, zinc. Cut caffeine. Eat enough food. This goes for high cortisol as well- get back to your natural balanced state.

“Every stress leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older.” - Hans Selye

5. α-MSH (Melanocortin)

Problem: You’ve been dieting, fasting, or restricting calories - and your metabolic rate tanked. You lost weight initially but now you’re stuck, cold, and exhausted. Your body downregulated thyroid output to match the energy coming in.

Mechanism: α-MSH is one of the brain’s primary signals to keep thyroid hormone production running. It activates neurons in the hypothalamus that produce TRH - the hormone that tells the pituitary to release TSH, which tells the thyroid to make hormones. When you restrict food, α-MSH drops and its antagonist AGRP rises. The entire thyroid axis dials down. Your metabolic rate follows. What makes this system elegant: glucose directly supports TRH production through a parallel pathway. Adequate carbohydrate intake keeps this signal alive independently. The enzyme that manufactures α-MSH itself requires copper and vitamin C as cofactors - two nutrients commonly depleted in restrictive dieters.

Solution: Stop restricting. Get sunlight. Eat enough total calories and specifically enough carbohydrates - glucose is a direct input to TRH production. Ensure copper and vitamin C are adequate. No supplement bypasses the need for food. The basic signal to the thyroid is energy availability.

(In addition, if you have the MC4R genetic variant (like me), then there is interaction with reduced energy expenditure. The best way to solve this is lots of sun exposure.)

“The basic signal to the thyroid is food.” - Ray Peat

6. Bile Acids

Problem: Poor bile flow or liver congestion is crippling peripheral thyroid hormone activation. T4 isn’t converting to T3 efficiently in the tissues where it counts.

Mechanism: Bile acids activate TGR5, a G-protein-coupled receptor that triggers cAMP production and stimulates DIO2 - the conversion enzyme that turns T4 into T3. When bile acids bind TGR5, oxygen consumption and metabolic rate both increase. This operates independently of the nuclear bile acid receptor FXR-α. The nuance: at the thyroid gland itself, bile acids can inhibit iodine uptake. So bile acids suppress production at the source while enhancing activation at the destination - a context-specific dual role that explains why liver and gallbladder health are thyroid issues.

Solution: Support healthy bile production and flow. Adequate dietary fat, bitter herbs, and ox bile supplementation if needed. Astragalus polysaccharides increase beneficial bile acid profiles. If GGT is elevated on your labs, bile stagnation may be a hidden piece of your thyroid puzzle.

Part 2: Nutrients and Diet

Robert McCarrison spent the early 1900s in the Himalayas studying thyroid disease, nutrition, and digestive health among isolated populations. What he found- decades before the microbiome became a buzzword- was that the communities with the healthiest digestive systems had the lowest rates of goiter and thyroid dysfunction. The gut-thyroid connection isn’t new science. It’s forgotten science. McCarrison published his findings in the 1920s and 30s. We’re just now catching up to what he already proved.

The nutrients below are the cofactors that make every upstream signal translate into actual T3 production and utilization. Without them, nothing else on this list works fully.

7. Copper

Problem: TSH is elevated and T3 is low despite normal T4. The thyroid is producing hormones but the body can’t activate them. Classic hypothyroid symptoms persist- cold extremities, brain fog, sluggish metabolism- and nobody can find the cause.

Mechanism: Copper is a silent operator in thyroid metabolism. It drives cytochrome c oxidase- the final enzyme in the mitochondrial electron transport chain- and ceruloplasmin, which regulates iron metabolism and prevents unbound iron from accumulating in liver tissue. Free iron in the liver generates oxidative damage that directly impairs the deiodinase enzymes responsible for T4-to-T3 conversion. Copper deficiency creates a cascade: impaired mitochondrial energy → iron dysregulation → liver oxidative damage → blocked conversion → low T3 with normal T4. The other overlooked angle: zinc supplementation without copper quietly creates a deficiency that tanks thyroid function over months. If you’ve been taking zinc alone, you may have done this to yourself.

Solution: Beef liver- once/twice weekly- is the most bioavailable whole-food source on earth. Next is eating oysters, which contain high amounts of zinc + copper in a perfect ratio. Test serum copper (aim for 90–120 mcg/mL) and ceruloplasmin (20–30 mg/dL). If supplementing zinc, always pair with copper. The ratio matters more than either dose alone.

8. Zinc

Problem: Thyroid function is suppressed at every level- weak TSH signal from the brain, poor hormone production at the gland, impaired T4-to-T3 conversion, and thyroid receptors that can’t bind the hormone even when it arrives at the cell.

Mechanism: Zinc touches nearly every step of the thyroid cascade. It’s required for TSH synthesis- low zinc means a weaker pituitary signal. It supports the enzymes that produce hormones at the gland. It activates D1, the deiodinase enzyme responsible for T4-to-T3 conversion- zinc deficiency alone reduces D1 activity by 30%. It builds superoxide dismutase, the antioxidant enzyme that protects thyroid tissue from the oxidative stress of its own hormone production. And it maintains thyroid receptor structure- without zinc, the receptor can’t properly dock T3, meaning even optimal hormone levels go unused at the cellular level.

Solution: Oysters 2–3 times weekly deliver zinc and copper together in near-perfect bioavailable ratios- nature’s thyroid supplement. Eat beef + red meats. Supplemental zinc: 15–30mg daily, always paired with copper.

9. Selenium

Problem: T4-to-T3 conversion is stalled and the thyroid gland is under oxidative assault from its own hormone production. Autoimmune thyroid markers may be elevated.

Mechanism: Every deiodinase enzyme is a selenoprotein- no selenium, no conversion, full stop. Selenium also builds the glutathione peroxidase and thioredoxin reductase systems that protect thyroid tissue from reactive oxygen species generated during hormone synthesis. The thyroid produces more ROS per gram of tissue than almost any organ in the body- it needs antioxidant defense proportional to its own output. In autoimmune thyroid conditions, adequate selenium lowers antibody levels, calms inflammation, and improves overall gland function. It’s simultaneously the conversion cofactor and the gland protector.

Solution: 2–5 whole eggs daily (yolks contain selenium plus cholesterol for steroid hormone synthesis). 2–3 Brazil nuts daily for additional selenium. Supplement: 200 mcg as L-selenomethionine.

10. B Vitamins, Iodine and Vitamin D

Problem: Thyroid panels are disrupted and no single mineral deficiency explains it. Multiple conversion and utilization pathways are underperforming simultaneously, creating system-wide drag.

Mechanism: Riboflavin (B2) and B12 drive the mitochondrial electron transport chain- the energy machinery that T3 conversion and cellular utilization both depend on. Research on nearly 400 healthy individuals revealed that deficiencies in B2, B9 (folate), B12, and vitamin D all produced significant thyroid disruption across multiple markers. Calcium, copper, choline, iron, and zinc each correlated independently with free T3. The takeaway: thyroid function isn’t one nutrient. It’s a constellation. Deficiency in any node of the network creates drag on the entire system.

Solution: Liver, eggs, and milk cover most B vitamins from whole food. Vitamin D: 5,000 IU daily adjusted to current levels. Seafood, eggs, dairy for iodine.

11. Vitamin A

Problem: T3 levels look adequate on paper but you still feel hypothyroid. The hormone is circulating. The cells aren’t responding. The receptors that should receive T3 and translate it into gene expression aren’t activated.

Mechanism: Retinol- preformed vitamin A- regulates thyroid hormone receptor expression at the genetic level. Without adequate retinol, the receptors T3 binds to in the nucleus are underexpressed and poorly functional. Deficiency also reduces iodine uptake, impairs coupling steps within the thyroid gland, and decreases T4-to-T3 conversion in the liver. The result: you optimize everything else on this list and still feel hypothyroid because the final handoff -T3 reaching its receptor and activating gene expression - is broken. Vitamin A doesn’t dramatically raise T3 levels. It makes T3 work once it arrives.

Solution: Beef liver, 100–200g twice weekly (Noticing a pattern? ;). Preformed retinol from animal sources- not beta-carotene from plants, which requires a conversion step that many people perform poorly or not at all. If you can’t stand liver, chop it frozen into pill-sized pieces and swallow them whole with water. This is the single most important whole food for thyroid optimization.

“When people supplement thyroid and eat liver once or twice a week, their acne and dandruff and many other problems usually clear up very quickly.” - Ray Peat

Part 3: Herbs & More

Hakaru Hashimoto described autoimmune thyroiditis in 1912. Over a century later, the condition bearing his name affects an estimated 14 million Americans- and most of them are told their labs look normal. Long before Hashimoto published his paper, traditional medicine systems across the world had been treating thyroid dysfunction with the plants below. Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and European herbalism all converged on the same organ system from different continents using different frameworks. The mechanisms we now understand through modern biochemistry are validations of what those systems empirically discovered centuries ago.

12. Guggulsterone

Problem: T4 is being produced but not converting to T3. Labs show adequate T4, possibly even elevated TSH, but T3 is low and symptoms persist. The bottleneck is the conversion step- the most common failure point in thyroid dysfunction.

Mechanism: Guggulsterone directly enhances the enzymatic conversion of T4 to T3. At 200mg, research demonstrates significant T3 increases. It simultaneously improves iodine uptake into the thyroid gland, ramps up TPO- the enzyme at the center of hormone assembly- and supports the protease enzymes that process hormones downstream. It addresses multiple points in the thyroid cascade, but its superpower is conversion- the exact step where most people with “normal labs” and hypothyroid symptoms are failing.

Solution: 200mg daily. If you take one single herb from this entire article, make it this one. It pairs well with everything else because it fixes the most common bottleneck- and most other interventions target production, signaling, or cellular uptake rather than the conversion step itself.

13. Forskolin

Problem: TSH is signaling the thyroid to produce hormones, but the gland’s intracellular response is sluggish. The machinery that translates TSH’s message into actual hormone output is underperforming.

Mechanism: Forskolin activates adenylate cyclase directly, bypassing the TSH receptor entirely and driving a surge of cAMP inside thyroid cells- the second messenger that triggers hormone production and release. In controlled studies, forskolin produced a faster and steeper rise in hormone secretion than TSH itself, because it skips the receptor-binding step and goes straight to the signaling cascade. It also influences broader thyroid cell signaling through effects on phospholipid metabolism- suggesting impacts beyond simple hormone release.

Solution: Forskolin extract standardized to 10–20% forskolin, 250mg once or twice daily. Think of it as making your existing TSH work harder- or bypassing a sluggish TSH receptor altogether. Pairs naturally with guggulsterone: forskolin increases raw production, guggulsterone enhances conversion to the active form.

14. Ashwagandha

Problem: Chronic stress and systemic inflammation are suppressing the conversion pathway. Pro-inflammatory cytokines like IL-6 are elevated, anti-inflammatory cytokines like IL-10 are suppressed, and deiodinase enzymes are inhibited by the inflammatory environment. The thyroid gland may be structurally perfect- the problem is everything around it.

Mechanism: Ashwagandha restores T3 by addressing the upstream cause rather than the downstream symptom: it reduces oxidative stress and lowers the inflammatory cytokines that directly suppress deiodinase activity. When inflammation drops, the conversion pathway reopens and T4-to-T3 conversion normalizes on its own. Ashwagandha doesn’t stimulate the thyroid directly- it removes the brake that chronic stress and inflammation placed on it.

Solution: 600mg KSM-66 or Sensoril daily. This is your herb when stress is the dominant driver of thyroid suppression- disrupted cortisol rhythm or running on adrenaline for months. Ashwagandha clears the inflammatory environment so that the conversion machinery underneath can do what it was built to do.

15. Naringenin

Problem: Age-related decline in thyroid function. The pituitary becomes less efficient at secreting TSH. Thyroid peroxidase activity weakens. The entire system gradually loses the responsiveness it had when you were younger.

Mechanism: Naringenin works at the pituitary level, increasing SIRT1 expression- a longevity protein associated with metabolic health- which enhances TSH release efficiency. It simultaneously stimulates thyroid peroxidase at the gland level for improved hormone synthesis. The antioxidant calibration is precise: enough oxidative capacity to support hormone production, enough defense to prevent cellular damage. Structural analysis of treated thyroid cells shows more developed cellular machinery and more active secretion- the cells look younger.

Solution: Citrus fruits- oranges. Orange juice is a practical daily delivery vehicle. 8–16oz daily, split between morning and afternoon. Fresh-squeezed is ideal but store-bought works. Option to do orange peel tea if you don’t need the extra calories from OJ.

“Orange juice, guavas, watermelons, cherimoyas, cooked apples, cherries, and ripe papayas are good sources of sugar to have regularly.” -Ray Peat

16. Rhodiola

Problem: Broad thyroid suppression across multiple markers. No single deficiency explains the pattern- the entire axis is underperforming and you need something that addresses the system, not one enzyme.

Mechanism: When paired with sufficient iodine intake, rhodiola brought every thyroid marker back to normal range in research models- suggesting it recalibrates the full axis rather than hitting one enzymatic target. As an adaptogen, it modulates the stress response that frequently suppresses thyroid function while supporting the metabolic conditions the thyroid system needs to self-regulate.

Solution: 300mg Rhodiola rosea extract daily. Ensure adequate iodine status for the synergistic effect documented in the research. Best used as a systemic support herb rather than a single-target thyroid intervention.

17. Diosgenin

Problem: T3 is low and you need a reliable, dose-responsive botanical intervention-something you can titrate up and expect proportional results.

Mechanism: Diosgenin, the active compound in Dioscorea (wild yam), raises T3 proportionally to the dose- the more you take, the more you get. It has centuries of use in Traditional Chinese Medicine formulas designed specifically for thyroid dysfunction and metabolic insufficiency.

“In the tradition of Chinese medicine, the kidney essence governs the fire of life and the thyroid is its expression in the body.” - Classical TCM principle

Solution: Dioscorea Nipponica (Nootropics Depot Brand) or a wild yam extract. The dose-response relationship makes it practical to titrate- start conservative and increase based on symptoms and labs.

18. Ginseng

Problem: Hypothyroidism has disrupted your circadian rhythm. Body temperature amplitude is blunted- you don’t warm up properly in the morning or cool down appropriately at night. Sleep timing, energy rhythm, and metabolic timing are all off.

Mechanism: Hypothyroidism blunts circadian clock gene expression in peripheral metabolic organs. Ginseng restores this expression, improving body temperature rhythm amplitude and thermal signaling across the daily cycle. It enhances thyroid-related enzyme activity in the small intestine- the gut’s contribution to thyroid hormone metabolism. It inhibits CYP3A4, potentially amplifying the effects of other herbs and compounds taken alongside it. And it promotes the growth of Enterococcus faecium, a bacterial species that upregulates thyroid receptor alpha gene transcription- meaning better receptor availability for T3 at the cellular level.

Solution: 200–400mg ginseng root extract daily. Particularly valuable when temperature rhythm is flat (no warm mornings, no cool evenings), when circadian symptoms dominate (wired at night, dead in the morning), or when gut-thyroid optimization is part of the protocol. It also enhances the thyroid receptor probiotic effect, making it a bridge between the herb and gut optimization sections of this article.

19. Black Cumin

Problem: TSH is elevated, thyroid antibodies (anti-TPO) are present, and T3 is low- an autoimmune-inflammatory thyroid picture that needs both immune modulation and direct thyroid support.

Mechanism: Eight weeks of 2g black cumin powder produced lower TSH, reduced thyroid antibodies, and measurably higher T3. The dual anti-inflammatory and thyroid-stimulating effect addresses the autoimmune component while directly supporting hormone output. A solid supporting intervention- not the most powerful tool in the protocol, but clean, well-tolerated, and easy to add.

Solution: 2g black cumin powder daily. A background player. Add it to the rotation but don’t build a protocol around it alone.

20. Aspirin

Problem: T3 and T4 are in the blood but mostly bound to carrier proteins- biologically inert. The tiny free fraction that actually enters cells and activates receptors isn’t sufficient to drive metabolic function. You have the hormone. Your cells can’t access it.

Mechanism: Aspirin physically displaces thyroid hormones from their carrier proteins. The biologically active fraction of both hormones jumps 50–75%- a massive shift in bioavailable hormone. Total levels actually appear to drop (because less is bound), but the free, active, cell-entering fraction skyrockets. The effect persists for 8–10 days after dosing. A slight TSH reduction follows- not from pituitary suppression but from the increased metabolic rate enhancing TSH clearance from the bloodstream.

Solution: Match aspirin dosage to symptoms reduction. Ranges from 325mg-4g of aspirin. Always pair with Vitamin K. One of the most practical, accessible, and underappreciated interventions on this entire list.

“Aspirin, by increasing the activity of thyroid hormone, can help to shift the balance away from cortisol and estrogen dominance.” - Ray Peat

21. Ginger

Problem: Chronic inflammation is blocking thyroid hormone conversion and your body’s stress response has become maladaptive. Pro-inflammatory cytokines are elevated, cortisol rhythm is disrupted, and the deiodinase enzymes that convert T4 to T3 are suppressed by the inflammatory cascade.

Mechanism: Ginger’s active compounds-gingerols and shogaols- directly modulate the inflammatory pathways that suppress thyroid function. It reduces IL-6 and TNF-α, the same pro-inflammatory cytokines that inhibit deiodinase activity and block peripheral T4-to-T3 conversion. Beyond inflammation control, ginger enhances thermogenesis by increasing noradrenaline levels and stimulating brown adipose tissue- the same mechanism that cold exposure uses to boost local T3 production. It also improves insulin sensitivity, which supports both IGF-1 and klotho production. The anti-nausea and digestive benefits aren’t incidental- improved gastric motility and reduced gut inflammation create a better environment for nutrient absorption and reduced endotoxin load, both of which matter for thyroid optimization.

Solution: Fresh ginger root, 1–2 inches daily, grated into hot water as tea or added to food. If fresh isn’t practical, 1–2g dried ginger powder or 250–500mg standardized ginger extract.

22. Butyrate

Problem: Thyroid tissue integrity is compromised. Key thyroid genes- thyroglobulin, thyroid peroxidase, TSH receptor- are underexpressed at the genetic level. Hormone synthesis and secretion are impaired from the ground up. And the cause traces to a depleted gut.

Mechanism: Short-chain fatty acids- especially butyrate- have direct effects on thyroid tissue that extend far beyond digestive health. Butyrate maintains thyroid tissue structural integrity, enhances expression of TG, TPO, and TSHR genes, and stimulates T3 and T4 synthesis and secretion. In people with hypothyroidism, the bacterial species that produce these SCFAs are significantly reduced- creating a vicious cycle of low butyrate → compromised thyroid gene expression → lower hormone output → further gut dysbiosis. Butyrate also reduces mitochondrial-damaging metabolites like p-cresol sulfate and indoxyl sulfate that independently impair thyroid function.

Solution: Citrus pectin, acacia fiber, ghee, asparagus, artichokes, clostridium butyricum and astragalus polysaccharides. Stop the artificial sweeteners.

What Suppresses T3 (Know Your Enemies)

Everything you build with the interventions above can be undermined by exposures and habits that actively suppress T3. Half of optimization is addition. The other half is removal.

Endotoxin from gut bacterial overgrowth directly lowers T3- one of the strongest arguments for gut optimization as a thyroid intervention. COX-1 inhibitors can reverse this effect, pointing to the inflammatory mechanism.

Free fatty acids compete with T3 and T4 for binding proteins, reducing the free hormone available for cells. Chronically elevated NEFA levels from lipolysis- stress, fasting, extended low-carb dieting- sabotage thyroid delivery at the bloodstream level.

Excess cortisol suppresses TSH, lowers both T3 and T4, and shunts T4 toward reverse T3- converting your active hormone into its metabolic brake.

Glucagon lowers T3 and increases reverse T3. Fasting and very low-carb diets elevate glucagon chronically. This is one of the primary mechanisms through which restriction diets suppress thyroid function.

Estrogen dominance raises thyroxine-binding globulin, trapping more T3 and T4 on carrier proteins and reducing the free fraction available to enter cells.

GLP-1 agonists (semaglutide, liraglutide, tirzepatide) increase D3 expression- the enzyme that converts T4 into reverse T3 instead of active T3. If you’re on Ozempic and feeling hypothyroid, this mechanism is likely why.

Excess iodine is paradoxically anti-thyroid at high doses- triggering inflammation through IL-6, TNFα, and NOS pathways. More is not better. Adequate is better.

Emotional stress is one thing that is continually overlooked. If you heal or release certain energies in your body, thyroid hormone will pick back up. Energy center 5, in your neck, where your thyroid is located- is connected to speaking up and speaking your truth. Step up for YOU.

“The adaptive responses to stress always have a cost - and the thyroid is often the first system to pay it.” - Hans Selye

Quick Start Protocol

Everything in this article works. But starting with all of it at once is a recipe for confusion, wasted money, and unclear cause-and-effect. Build the foundation first. Layer interventions strategically. Track what moves the markers. Twelve weeks is enough time to restore function if you do it right.

Weeks 1-2: Foundation

Goal: Establish the metabolic and nutritional baseline that everything else depends on.

Diet:

• Carbohydrates: 150g daily minimum. Basmati rice, any potatoes, fruit, orange juice, raw honey, gluten free grains (buckwheat/sorghum), dairy.

• Protein: 120-180g. Beef, eggs, dairy, seafood, bone broth.

• Sodium: 3–5g daily. Salt your food to taste.

• Eliminate: Seed oils, artificial sweeteners, processed foods. This isn’t about purity. It’s about removing variables that actively suppress thyroid function.

Sleep:

• Consistent sleep and wake times. 7–9 hours nightly. PLEASE do this if you want it to work!!!

• Snack before bed (milk + honey or cottage cheese + kiwi). Stabilizes blood sugar, supports overnight glycogen, reduces cortisol.

Sunlight:

• 10–20 minutes morning sun within first hour of waking. Face and torso exposed.

• 10–30 minutes midday sun for vitamin D synthesis.

• Touch grass with your bare feet if possible.

Track:

• Morning pulse.

• Morning temperature.

• Afternoon temperature (between 2–4 PM).

• Pulse and temp should rise after eating.

• Subjective warmth in hands and feet.

Minerals (baseline):

• Zinc: 15–30mg + Copper: 1–3mg (take together, ideally with food).

• Selenium: 200mcg (L-selenomethionone form).

• Vitamin D: 5,000 IU daily if not getting adequate sun.

Or simply eat oysters, eggs and liver.

Why this order: You cannot supplement or herb your way out of a broken dietary foundation. Metabolism needs energy substrate, mineral cofactors, circadian entrainment, and adequate sleep before anything else works. These two weeks aren’t optional. They’re the load-bearing wall. Skip this and everything you build afterward collapses.

Weeks 3–4: Primary Interventions

Goal: Address the most common bottleneck- T4 to T3 conversion- and support upstream production.

Add:

• Rhodiola Rosea: 300mg daily. Normalizes thyroid hormone effectively.

• Iodine: 250mcg daily. Get from food- eggs, iodized salt, seafood or cranberry juice.

Continue: Everything from Weeks 1–2. Foundation never stops.

Track: Same markers. Pulse and temperature should start moving within 7–10 days if conversion was the primary bottleneck. If they don’t move, the problem is upstream (production) or downstream (cellular uptake), not conversion.

Weeks 5–8: Gut Optimization

Goal: Restore thyroid gene expression at the tissue level and enhance receptor availability through gut-mediated pathways.

Add:

• Astragalus polysaccharides: 1,000mg daily. Premier prebiotic for butyrate-producing bacteria.

• Clostridium butyricum: 3–5 billion CFU. Direct butyrate producer. Pair with astragalus for synergistic effect.

• Ginseng root extract: 200–400mg daily. Feeds Enterococcus faecium (upregulates thyroid receptor alpha), restores circadian temperature rhythm.

• Fiber sources: Citrus pectin (10g) and acacia fiber (5–10g); asparagus, artichokes.

Why now: Gut interventions take time. Bacterial colonies need 4–6 weeks to shift meaningfully. Butyrate production lags behind prebiotic introduction by 2–3 weeks. Starting gut work early means it’s producing results by Week 8 rather than Week 12.

Track: Add transit time to your tracking. Eat corn or beets. Time first appearance to elimination. Target: 18–24 hours. If you’re still over 36 hours at Week 8, gut motility hasn’t restored yet- reassess diet, stress, and hydration.

Weeks 9–12: Fine-Tuning and Cellular Delivery

Goal: Ensure T3 isn’t just circulating but entering cells, binding receptors, and activating genes.

Add:

• Aspirin: Start at 500mg daily with food. Increase if tolerated and needed based on symptom response. Always pair with Vitamin K2.

• Optional (if stress/inflammation dominant): Ashwagandha 600mg KSM-66 or Sensoril daily. Lowers inflammatory cytokines that block deiodinase enzymes.

• Optional (if circadian rhythm flat): Continue ginseng from Weeks 5–8 if not already added, or increase dose to 400mg.

Why now: You’ve spent eight weeks building production and conversion. If T3 is circulating but symptoms persist, delivery or receptor activation is the bottleneck. Aspirin frees hormone from binding proteins. Butyrate gets it into the nucleus. This is the final unlock.

Track: By Week 12, pulse should be mid-60s to low-70s. Temperature should be 98.2–98.6°F by mid-morning. Subjective warmth should be present. Energy stable throughout the day. Sleep latency under 15 minutes. Transit time 18–24 hours. If these markers have normalized, the protocol worked. If they haven’t, reassess for hidden variables: heavy metals, undiagnosed autoimmune condition, medication interference, unresolved chronic stress, or structural thyroid damage.

Other Essential Information

Caffeine Rules
Supportive if: taken with food (coffee + cream + sugar), morning only, 100–200mg dose, adrenals healthy. Destructive if: taken fasted, late afternoon, >400mg daily, or when waking temp below 97.5°F and pulse below 55 bpm. Fasted caffeine spikes cortisol, suppresses TSH, shunts T4 to reverse T3. If you get a stress reaction… quit caffeine!

Heavy Metals
Mercury blocks selenium utilization (competes for selenoproteins). Lead disrupts thyroid hormone synthesis. Cadmium interferes with iodine metabolism. Test via hair mineral analysis or urine challenge. The best way to detox is good diet, high metabolism + supportive lifestyle.

Reverse T3
High rT3 caused by: chronic stress/cortisol, caloric restriction, inflammation, liver dysfunction, selenium deficiency. Ideal T3:rT3 ratio >10:1. Clear rT3 by fixing root causes above. T3-only medication bypasses the problem. Half-life is 4–6 hours- clears quickly once production stops.

Training for Thyroid
Resistance training 3–4x/week increases klotho, builds muscle (more conversion sites), improves insulin sensitivity. Avoid: excessive cardio (raises cortisol, depletes glycogen), training fasted (suppresses α-MSH), overtraining (inflammation blocks conversion). Heavy compound lifts with adequate rest between sessions. Post-workout carbs restore glycogen.

Common Mistakes
Taking herbs without fixing diet. Supplementing iodine without selenium. Doing cold exposure with trashed adrenals. Going keto “to fix metabolism.” Fasting for “autophagy.” Adding everything at once and not knowing what works. Stopping medication cold turkey. Trusting TSH alone when free T3 is in the gutter.

When to Add Medication
After 12 weeks of protocol with no improvement. Free T3 still below 3.0 pg/mL despite normalized diet, minerals, gut, and herbs. Symptoms still severe. Consider NDT or T4/T3 combo for full-spectrum hormone support. Work with doctor who understands functional thyroid optimization.

The High Energy Approach

Everything in this article works.

But information isn’t transformation. Knowing what to do and knowing what you specifically need are different things entirely.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making dietary and supplementary changes, especially if you have health conditions or take medications. Individual needs vary. Use at your own risk.

You just lied.

Not completely. You do love them- intellectually, as a commitment, as a choice you keep making. But when they said it across the table just now, waiting for you to say it back, you felt nothing.

You said the words anyway. Because what else do you say on Valentine’s Day when your partner tells you they love you?

This will be the story of millions of people this week.

But not you.

You want to feel more love, more connection, more heart.

But, over the years, you’ve lost the feelings of elevated emotions.

You want to feel what you used to feel. But touch produces nothing. Eye contact creates discomfort. You've become trapped in your head, cut off from your heart.

You assume that this is who you are now. That age has rewired your brain. That maybe you’re just not capable of deep intimacy anymore.

You’re wrong.

The problem isn’t psychological. It’s metabolic.

Your oxytocin receptors are shut down. When thyroid function drops, receptor expression plummets 70%. When prolactin rises from chronic stress, it blocks the receptors that remain. When micronutrients are depleted, signal transduction fails.

You can release all the oxytocin in the world through touch and intimacy. But if your cells can’t receive the signal… you feel nothing.

The capacity for bonding you think you’ve lost? It’s still there. Just waiting for the right metabolic environment.

This Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be another hollow performance.

Here’s how to fix your oxytocin receptors.

But first, you need to know if this is actually your problem.

How To Know If Your Oxytocin Is Low

Physical signs

Physical touch does nothing for you. Hugs feel like pressure without warmth- you’re aware someone is touching you, but it produces no emotional response. Massage is mechanical. You lie there counting minutes instead of relaxing. Cuddling creates restlessness instead of comfort. Your partner wants to stay close, but you’re calculating how long until you can reasonably pull away.

Eye contact feels uncomfortable. Even with your partner, sustained eye contact creates anxiety rather than bonding. You break it after a few seconds. That warm, connected feeling other people describe when they lock eyes with someone they love- you can’t access it. Instead, you feel exposed, awkward, like you’re doing something wrong.

Emotional Signs

You can’t trust easily. New relationships feel threatening instead of exciting. Vulnerability seems impossible. You stay guarded even when you want to open up. You know logically that this person is safe, that you should let them in- but your nervous system won’t cooperate. The walls stay up.

You hold grudges. Forgiving feels impossible even when you know logically you should let go. Someone apologizes sincerely. You accept it with your words. But the resentment sticks. You can’t access the softening that forgiveness requires. The anger or hurt remains locked in your body.

You overthink everything in relationships. Analyzing, calculating, trying to figure out the “right” way to feel or behave. Love feels like a problem to solve rather than an experience to have. You’re always in your head, never in your heart.

Intimacy Signs

Sex is mechanical. Physical sensations work- arousal happens, orgasm happens- but there’s no bonding afterwards. You immediately want space instead of closeness. Your partner wants to cuddle and talk and maintain the connection. You want to check your phone, get water, take a shower. The post-intimacy bonding phase everyone talks about never arrives for you.

During sex, you’re present physically but absent emotionally. You go through the motions. It feels good physically but hollow emotionally. Afterwards, instead of feeling closer to your partner, you feel more distant. Intimacy creates separation rather than connection.

You avoid initiating intimacy. Not because you don’t want it, but because the performance exhausts you. You know you’ll have to fake the emotional connection that’s supposed to come with it.

Social Signs

Social situations drain you completely. You can perform socially- you’ve gotten good at it. You know what to say, how to laugh, when to engage. But it never recharges you. Other people seem energized by connection. You need days to recover.

Small talk feels unbearable. Not because you’re introverted, but because the superficial connection required feels like friction without purpose. You’re going through social motions without accessing any of the reward that makes socializing worthwhile.

You cancel plans frequently. Even with people you care about. The thought of showing up and performing connection for hours feels overwhelming. You’d rather be alone, not because solitude energizes you, but because it’s the only time you’re not pretending.

Stress Signs

Your stress never resolves. Even after stressful situations end, your body stays activated. You can’t downshift into rest. The fight-or-flight response that should be temporary has become your baseline. You wake up with tension. You go to bed with tension. It never releases.

You can’t access calm. Meditation doesn’t work. Breathing exercises feel pointless. Relaxation techniques fail. Your nervous system is stuck in sympathetic dominance. The parasympathetic shift required for bonding, rest, and connection is neurochemically unavailable to you.

Small stressors create disproportionate responses. Someone cuts you off in traffic; your heart rate spikes for the next hour. A work email triggers anxiety that lasts all evening. Your cortisol stays elevated constantly. And elevated cortisol blocks oxytocin receptor function.

Metabolic Confirmation

If your TSH is above 2.5 mIU/L, your thyroid function is suboptimal. Even if it’s “within range,” TSH above 2.5 indicates your cells aren’t getting adequate thyroid hormone. And without adequate T3, your body downregulates oxytocin receptor expression by 70%.

If your prolactin is elevated- above 15 ng/mL for men, above 25 ng/mL for women- it’s directly blocking your oxytocin receptors. Prolactin and oxytocin compete for the same binding sites. When prolactin is high, oxytocin has nowhere to attach.

If you’re chronically stressed and haven’t addressed it metabolically, your cortisol is likely elevated. Chronic cortisol exposure downregulates oxytocin receptor expression and desensitizes the receptors that remain. You develop oxytocin resistance- similar to insulin resistance but for your bonding hormone.

If your basal body temperature is consistently below 97.8°F upon waking, your metabolic rate is suppressed. Low metabolic rate indicates hypothyroidism even when blood work looks “normal.” And hypothyroidism destroys oxytocin receptor function.

If you recognize yourself in these signs, your oxytocin receptors aren’t working. The good news: This is fixable. The capacity for bonding you think you’ve lost is still there. It just needs the right metabolic environment to function.

Here’s how to restore it.

Receptors, Not Release

Your hypothalamus produces oxytocin continuously. It’s released during touch, eye contact, orgasm, and breastfeeding. That release mechanism works fine in most people.

The problem is at the receptor level.

Think of it like a radio. Your brain is broadcasting the signal perfectly- but your cells can’t tune in to receive it.

Thyroid hormone builds the receptors. T3 directly activates the gene that creates oxytocin receptors. Studies show T3 increases receptor production by 300-400% in target tissues. Without adequate thyroid function, your cells simply don’t make enough receptors. The oxytocin is there- you just don’t have enough receivers to catch the signal.

Prolactin blocks the receptors. Prolactin and oxytocin are structurally similar hormones that compete for the same receptor sites. When prolactin is elevated- from stress, hypothyroidism, SSRIs, or chronic under-eating- it occupies your oxytocin receptors. The oxytocin can’t bind because prolactin is sitting in its spot.

Micronutrients enable the signal. Even when you have enough receptors and they’re not blocked, the receptor still needs to transmit its signal into the cell. Zinc is required for this signal transduction. Vitamin C is required to synthesize oxytocin in the first place. Without these, the entire system fails.

Most oxytocin advice focuses on release: hug more, practice gratitude, touch more often. All of this releases oxytocin. But if your receptors aren’t working- if they’re not being built, if they’re blocked, or if they can’t transmit signals- you’ll feel nothing.

That’s why all the behavioral interventions failed. You weren’t doing them wrong. Your metabolic state wouldn’t allow them to work.

The Metabolic Benefits of Oxytocin (Beyond Bonding)

Oxytocin isn’t just the “love hormone.” It’s a powerful metabolic regulator that directly impacts body composition, hormonal balance, and masculine behavior.

When your oxytocin receptors work properly, you get access to benefits most people never associate with connection and bonding.

Fat Loss and Body Composition

Oxytocin increases lipolysis- the breakdown of stored fat for energy. It activates hormone-sensitive lipase in adipose tissue, particularly targeting visceral fat. Studies show oxytocin administration reduces body weight and specifically decreases abdominal fat accumulation.

Oxytocin improves insulin sensitivity. It enhances glucose uptake in muscle tissue and reduces insulin resistance. Better insulin sensitivity means carbohydrates fuel muscle growth instead of fat storage. This is why people in healthy relationships often have better body composition- their oxytocin system is functioning optimally.

Oxytocin suppresses appetite through leptin signaling. It reduces food intake by modulating hunger hormones in the hypothalamus. This isn’t restriction-based appetite suppression- it’s natural satiety. You eat when hungry, stop when full, without the constant food noise.

The mechanism: Oxytocin activates brown adipose tissue (BAT), increasing thermogenesis and energy expenditure. More oxytocin = higher metabolic rate = more fat burned at rest.

Muscle Growth and Recovery

Oxytocin is anabolic. It increases growth hormone (GH) release from the pituitary gland. GH and oxytocin work synergistically- oxytocin triggers GH secretion, and both counter cortisol’s catabolic effects on muscle tissue.

Oxytocin accelerates wound healing and tissue repair. It promotes stem cell migration to injured areas and enhances collagen synthesis. This translates to faster recovery between training sessions and better adaptation to training stress.

Oxytocin reduces muscle wasting. In catabolic states (stress, illness, caloric restriction), oxytocin preserves lean body mass by inhibiting muscle protein breakdown. This is why chronic stress- which suppresses oxytocin- makes it nearly impossible to build or maintain muscle.

The mechanism: Oxytocin activates satellite cells (muscle stem cells) and promotes their differentiation into mature muscle fibers. It also reduces inflammation that would otherwise impair recovery.

Testosterone and DHT Enhancement

Oxytocin increases 5-alpha reductase (5AR) expression. 5AR converts testosterone to DHT- the more androgenic, more potent form. Higher 5AR activity = more DHT from the same amount of testosterone.

DHT drives masculine characteristics: increased muscle mass, decreased body fat, deeper voice, facial hair growth, assertiveness, competitive drive, sexual function. Oxytocin’s effect on 5AR expression is why men in healthy relationships often maintain better hormonal profiles than chronically stressed or isolated men.

Oxytocin requires zinc for this pathway. Zinc is the cofactor for 5AR. This creates a positive feedback loop: oxytocin → more 5AR expression → zinc enables 5AR function → more DHT → enhanced pair-bonding behavior and masculine traits.

Oxytocin opposes estrogen dominance. By supporting testosterone-to-DHT conversion and reducing cortisol (which increases aromatase activity), oxytocin creates a more androgenic hormonal environment.

Stress Reduction and Cortisol Management

Oxytocin is the primary cortisol antagonist. It directly inhibits the HPA axis- reducing CRH, ACTH, and cortisol secretion. When oxytocin receptors work properly, your stress response activates when needed then resolves. When they don’t work, cortisol stays chronically elevated.

Chronic cortisol destroys body composition. It breaks down muscle tissue, increases visceral fat storage, suppresses testosterone, impairs insulin sensitivity, and creates constant hunger. Oxytocin counters all of these effects.

Oxytocin promotes parasympathetic dominance. It shifts your nervous system from fight-or-flight (sympathetic) to rest-and-digest (parasympathetic). Parasympathetic activation is required for recovery, tissue repair, digestion, and anabolic processes. You can’t build muscle or burn fat optimally while stuck in sympathetic dominance.

The mechanism: Oxytocin activates the vagus nerve, increasing vagal tone and heart rate variability (HRV). Higher HRV = better stress resilience, faster recovery, more adaptive autonomic nervous system.

Anti-Inflammatory Effects

Oxytocin is a potent anti-inflammatory. It reduces pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β) and decreases NF-κB activation- the master regulator of inflammatory gene expression.

Inflammation suppresses thyroid function, increases cortisol, tanks testosterone, raises prolactin, and drives metabolic dysfunction. Oxytocin’s anti-inflammatory action protects against all of these. This is why social isolation (low oxytocin) is associated with inflammatory diseases, while strong social bonds (high oxytocin) are protective.

Oxytocin reduces gut inflammation and endotoxin. It strengthens intestinal barrier integrity, reducing lipopolysaccharide (LPS) translocation from the gut into circulation. Less endotoxin = less systemic inflammation = better metabolic function.

The mechanism: Oxytocin modulates immune cell activity, shifting the balance from pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory signaling.

Dopamine and Motivation

Oxytocin enhances dopamine release in reward circuits. Specifically, it increases dopamine in the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area (VTA)- the brain regions responsible for motivation, pleasure, and goal-directed behavior.

This creates a positive feedback loop: Connection and bonding increase oxytocin → oxytocin increases dopamine → dopamine reinforces the desire for connection and makes goal pursuit more rewarding. This is why men with functional oxytocin systems are more motivated, more driven, more capable of sustained effort.

Low oxytocin = low dopamine = anhedonia. Nothing feels rewarding. Training feels pointless. Work feels meaningless. Food doesn’t satisfy. Sex is mechanical. This isn’t depression—it’s dopamine deficiency driven by oxytocin receptor dysfunction.

Oxytocin opposes prolactin, which suppresses dopamine. This is critical because elevated prolactin (from stress, hypothyroidism, or SSRIs) kills motivation and drive through dopamine suppression.

Pair-Bonding and Masculine Behavior

Oxytocin doesn’t make men “soft.” It enhances pair-bonding behavior, territorial protection, and aggression toward threats to the pair or family unit. Men with higher oxytocin are more protective, more invested in their relationships, more motivated to provide and defend.

DHT amplifies this effect. The oxytocin → 5AR → DHT pathway creates a biochemical foundation for sustained masculine behavior: competitiveness in the external world, protectiveness toward family, sustained motivation and drive.

Oxytocin reduces anxiety around intimacy and vulnerability, which allows for deeper connection without sacrificing masculinity. The Hollywood version of stoic isolation isn’t masculine- it’s cortisol-driven dysfunction masquerading as strength.

Why This Matters

Most people completely ignoring oxytocin when optimizing. Then they wonder why their body composition plateaus, motivation crashes, sleep degrades, and stress never resolves.

Oxytocin is the missing piece. When your receptors work, you get:

• Better body composition (more muscle, less fat)

• Higher testosterone and DHT (more androgenic phenotype)

• Lower cortisol (better recovery, less inflammation)

• More motivation and drive (dopamine enhancement)

• Better sleep and recovery (growth hormone optimization)

• Reduced inflammation (better metabolic function)

The interventions below fix oxytocin receptor function. This isn’t about “feeling more love”-though that’s a side benefit. This is about accessing the metabolic advantages that come with a properly functioning bonding system.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

The 9 Ways

1. Fix Your Thyroid First

Thyroid hormone deficiency makes cells resistant to oxytocin even when oxytocin levels are optimal. When you’re hypothyroid, your body downregulates oxytocin receptor genes by 70-75% in target tissues. Your cells can’t feel oxytocin because they aren’t making enough receptors.

This is why it is said that “thyroid is love.”

T3 binds to thyroid hormone response elements on the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR). This activates transcription- the process by which your DNA creates the blueprint for building new receptor proteins. Without adequate T3, this gene stays largely silent. Research shows T3 treatment increases oxytocin receptor mRNA expression by 300-400% within weeks. The receptors that allow you to feel connection, trust, and forgiveness are literally built by thyroid hormone.

Solution: Get body temp up to 97.8-98.6°F and your pulse above 60bpm. If hypothyroid, work with your doctor on thyroid medication- consider T3-containing options rather than T4-only. Support conversion naturally with adequate sugars, calcium, selenium, zinc and eating milk, oysters, eggs and liver.

“The thyroid hormones, especially T3, are required for the sensitivity of all cells to other hormones and regulatory substances.” - Ray Peat

2. Lower Your Prolactin

Elevated prolactin literally blocks oxytocin from binding to its receptors. Prolactin and oxytocin are structurally similar hormones that compete for the same receptor sites. When prolactin is high, it occupies oxytocin receptors and prevents oxytocin from binding. You produce oxytocin normally but it has nowhere to attach.

Mechanism: Prolactin and oxytocin receptors share significant structural homology. In many tissues, they cross-bind—prolactin binding to oxytocin receptors and vice versa. When prolactin is chronically elevated, this cross-binding becomes problematic. High prolactin also downregulates oxytocin receptor expression over time. Common causes: hypothyroidism (low T3 → high TRH → high prolactin), chronic stress, SSRIs, low dopamine states, inadequate carbohydrate intake.

Solution: Get tested- fasting morning prolactin. Target below 15 ng/mL for men, below 25 ng/mL for women. Fix thyroid first (most common cause). Vitamin E increases dopamine and lowers prolactin. P5P, 2mg-50mg daily proven prolactin reducer. Adequate carbohydrates 200g+ daily- chronic low-carb raises prolactin significantly. Reduce stress through nervous system regulation.

3. Supplement Zinc

Zinc is required for oxytocin receptor activation and signal transduction. Even with adequate oxytocin and optimal receptor expression, zinc deficiency prevents the receptor from transmitting its signal into the cell. The receptor binds oxytocin but nothing happens downstream because zinc-dependent signaling cascades can’t activate.

Mechanism: Oxytocin receptors are G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). When oxytocin binds, zinc enables the phosphorylation reactions that transmit the oxytocin signal into cellular response- calcium release, gene transcription changes, neurotransmitter release. Additionally, zinc is required for 5-alpha reductase activity. Oxytocin increases 5AR expression, and 5AR requires zinc to function.

This creates a positive feedback loop: oxytocin → more 5AR → more DHT → enhanced pair-bonding behavior.

Solution: Oysters 6-12 twice weekly provide zinc and copper in ideal ratios. Red meat is the next best source of zinc.

Casanova’s 50-oyster breakfast wasn’t just about testosterone- it was about providing the zinc that makes oxytocin receptors actually work.

4. Get Vitamin C Daily

Vitamin C deficiency impairs oxytocin synthesis in the hypothalamus. The enzymatic pathway that converts oxytocin precursors into active oxytocin requires ascorbic acid as a cofactor. Without adequate vitamin C, you can’t produce oxytocin efficiently even if all other factors are optimal.

Oxytocin is synthesized from a larger precursor protein through enzymatic cleavage reactions. These require vitamin C as a cofactor for peptidylglycine alpha-amidating monooxygenase (PAM)- the enzyme responsible for the final step in oxytocin activation. The hypothalamus has some of the highest vitamin C concentrations in the body precisely because it needs ascorbic acid for neuropeptide synthesis. Stress rapidly depletes vitamin C as it’s used for cortisol synthesis in the adrenals. Chronic stress creates competition between stress hormone production and bonding hormone production- both need the same cofactor.

Solution: Supplement 1-2g daily of acerola cherry vitamin C. Citrus fruits, strawberries, red peppers, kiwi are best food sources. My favorite is fresh squeezed orange juice or guava juice. Increase to 3-4g daily during high stress periods to support both cortisol and oxytocin synthesis.

5. Supplement L. Reuteri 6475

Gut dysbiosis and endotoxin exposure suppress oxytocin production in the hypothalamus. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from gram-negative bacteria creates systemic inflammation that blocks oxytocin synthesis and reduces receptor sensitivity. Even with optimal thyroid function, if your gut microbiome is disrupted, you won’t produce adequate oxytocin in response to bonding stimuli.

Lactobacillus reuteri produces antimicrobial compounds that reduce populations of endotoxin-producing bacteria. Specific L. reuteri strains increase oxytocin production in the hypothalamus through vagal nerve signaling from the gut to the brain. Studies in mammals show L. reuteri supplementation increases circulating oxytocin by 30-40% and improves social behavior, wound healing, and stress resilience- all oxytocin-mediated effects. The gut-brain-oxytocin axis is bidirectional: a healthy gut produces more oxytocin, and oxytocin itself has anti-inflammatory effects.

Solution: Supplement L. reuteri 6475-10 billion daily. These are the specific strains shown to increase oxytocin in research. Make L. reuteri yogurt: use BioGaia tablets as starter culture with whole milk, ferment 36 hours at 100°F for maximum bacterial concentration. Support with prebiotics: inulin, resistant starch from cooked-and-cooled potatoes.

“The bacteria in the intestine can produce serotonin and can also affect the production of other transmitters and hormones, including oxytocin.” - Ray Peat

6. Strategic Caffeine Timing

Adenosine accumulation throughout the day creates fatigue and reduces social engagement. Adenosine signaling opposes oxytocin-mediated bonding by promoting isolation and rest-seeking behavior. By evening- when most couples try to connect- adenosine is at its peak and oxytocin responsiveness is at its lowest. This creates the paradox where you want to bond but your neurochemistry is pushing toward solitude.

Caffeine is an adenosine receptor antagonist. By blocking adenosine signaling, caffeine indirectly enhances oxytocin’s effects on social behavior and bonding motivation. Caffeine also stimulates oxytocin release directly through central nervous system activation. Studies show caffeine consumption increases circulating oxytocin by 15-25% and enhances oxytocin-mediated social recognition and bonding behaviors. The timing matters: caffeine’s effects peak 30-60 minutes after consumption and last 4-6 hours.

Solution: For connection, small dose of caffeine (50-100mg) 60-90 minutes before planned intimate time or bonding activities. Coffee or tea consumed during or just before massage, cuddling, or physical intimacy enhances oxytocin-mediated bonding. Avoid large doses (>200mg) or late timing (after 8pm) which create sympathetic dominance.

7. Heart-Brain Coherence Practice

Chronic sympathetic dominance prevents oxytocin release. When you’re stuck in fight-or-flight mode- which most stressed, high-achieving people are- your nervous system cannot shift into the parasympathetic state required for bonding. Oxytocin is released by the parasympathetic nervous system. If you’re perpetually activated, you cannot access the rest-and-digest mode where bonding, trust, and forgiveness happen naturally.

Heart rate variability (HRV) reflects autonomic balance. Low HRV indicates sympathetic dominance; high HRV indicates parasympathetic capacity. Heart-brain coherence training increases HRV and shifts autonomic tone toward parasympathetic. The vagus nerve connects the heart and brainstem. Coherent heart rhythms send afferent signals to the brainstem that activate oxytocin-producing neurons in the hypothalamus. This bottom-up signaling (body → brain) triggers oxytocin release independent of external stimuli. Coherent breathing (5-6 breaths per minute) synchronizes heart rate variability with respiratory rhythm.

Solution: Daily coherence practice- 10-20 minutes of paced breathing at 5.5 breaths per minute (5 seconds inhale, 5 seconds exhale). Place attention on your chest while breathing. Imagine breathing in and out through your heart. Add elevated emotion, such as joy, gratitude, peace. While breathing coherently, recall a moment of genuine connection, love, or appreciation. Practice 10 minutes before date night, physical intimacy, or meaningful conversations with your partner.

8. Casein Protein Before Bed

Inadequate protein intake at night creates muscle catabolism during sleep. This metabolic stress suppresses growth hormone and oxytocin- both are inhibited by elevated cortisol from tissue breakdown. Oxytocin and growth hormone work synergistically; oxytocin increases GH release, and both are anabolic hormones that counter cortisol’s catabolic effects. Love is anabolic.

Casein protein from dairy stimulates oxytocin release through specific opioid peptides (casomorphins) released during digestion. These peptides bind to opioid receptors in the gut and brain, triggering oxytocin release through vagal afferent pathways. Casein is a slow-digesting protein that releases amino acids over 6-8 hours. Consumed before bed, it provides sustained anabolic support overnight, reduces cortisol-mediated muscle breakdown, and maintains the low-stress state that allows oxytocin and growth hormone to function optimally.

Solution: Cottage cheese before bed or Full-fat Greek yogurt. Milk works similarly. Try milk + honey before sleep and you’ll notice a difference.

“Milk has some things that act directly on the brain to promote a calm but responsive state.” - Ray Peat

9. Deep Meditation Practice

Image from: “Becoming Supernatural” Dr. Joe Dispenza

Chronic stress creates oxytocin resistance- receptors become desensitized to normal oxytocin levels. You need higher and higher doses of oxytocin-releasing stimuli to feel the same bonding effect. This is similar to insulin resistance but for your bonding hormone. Your receptors stop responding to physiological levels of oxytocin. This explains why you can’t trust, forgive, or connect even when you want to- the signal isn’t getting through.

Mechanism: Chronic cortisol exposure downregulates oxytocin receptor expression and reduces receptor sensitivity through inflammatory signaling pathways. Stress literally turns off the genes that create oxytocin receptors. Deep meditative states (theta brainwave activity) increase oxytocin release while simultaneously reducing cortisol. This combination- more oxytocin, less cortisol- allows receptors to resensitize over time. Meditation also increases vagal tone (parasympathetic activity), creating the nervous system state where oxytocin can be released naturally. Oxytocin counters cortisol’s effects systemically.

Solution: Start with breath focus- 20 minutes daily of simple breath-focused meditation. Notice the breath without controlling it. Keep coming back to “nothing” of no thought, no mind, no time in nowhere.

The High Energy Approach

These interventions work. But if your oxytocin system is already compromised- if you’ve struggled with connection, trust, and forgiveness for years- you probably need more support alongside these strategies.

That’s where the High Energy Blueprint comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the Skool community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Do your own research, work with someone qualified, and don’t outsource your health decisions to anyone- including me. This is a starting point, not a prescription.

Football in high school and college, then 6-day-a-week lifting after graduation. I was never ‘off’. Rest days made me anxious. Taking a week off was something I refused to do.

I stayed lean- as long as I kept training like a madman.

But the moment I stopped? The moment I got busy with work or decided to enjoy my life with a few beers? I’d gain 10-15 pounds within a matter of weeks.

After many of these cycles, sick of trying so hard with no results, I asked the question- How would it be possible for me to barely exercise, eat whatever I want & be even leaner? A few days later, everything I knew was about to be turned upside down.

A friend of mine asked for me to come have burger and fries with him. This guy stays under 10% body fat year round, trains 2x a week and eats whatever he wants. He is muscular and “lazy” by most fitness standards. As we got to talking, I tried to convince him to workout with me to get those pounds back off.

You know what he said? “I’m good man. I don’t want to ruin my metabolism…” as he inhaled his double cheeseburger.

That honestly upset me. My ego was crushed. My mind was screaming, saying “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about! More exercise increases metabolism!!”

But he was 100% right. My obsession with staying lean was the exact thing keeping me from staying lean.

I had to know how this was possible.

That's when I found Ray Peat's work on metabolism and stress. He wrote: "Endurance exercise is the worst" and "Over-training produces serotonin overload from muscle protein catabolism."

Everything clicked. I'd spent eight years suppressing my metabolism with chronic training stress. I was lean because I was forcing my body to burn calories through sheer volume- but my actual metabolic rate was in the gutter. The moment I stopped providing that external stimulus, my body had no intrinsic capacity to maintain itself.

I had to rebuild my metabolism from scratch.

I cut training from 6 days to 3. I quit running and HIIT classes. I started eating 400g of carbs daily instead of low-carb grinding. I stopped fasting before workouts. I focused on one goal: raising my body temperature and metabolic rate.

Within 6 months:

- Body temperature rose from 97.2°F to 98.6°F

- Lost the 25 pounds I’d gained (and then some)

- Built 20 pounds of muscle

- Recovery improved from 4-5 days to 36 hours

- Energy skyrocketed

- Sleep quality increased

- Libido returned

But the real test: I took a month off training to travel Greece.

I came back the same weight, same leanness, same strength- while eating like a horse.

That had NEVER happened before. In my overtraining days, 3 weeks off meant gaining 15+ pounds and losing all my progress.

The difference? I’d rebuilt my metabolic rate. My body now burns calories efficiently at rest instead of depending on constant external exercise stimulus to maintain itself.

This is what training for metabolism looks like. Not training for muscle. Not training for fat loss. Training to raise the rate at which your body produces energy.

When you do that, everything else- muscle growth, fat loss, performance, recovery- follows automatically.

That’s what I’m going to show you now.

How To Know If Your Training Is Suppressing Your Metabolism

You feel drained after workouts instead of energized. Training should stimulate you, not destroy you. If you leave the gym needing to lie down for an hour, you’re creating more stress than your body can recover from.

You need stimulants just to show up. Pre-workout, caffeine, energy drinks- these are masking adrenal fatigue and metabolic suppression, not fixing them.

You’re cold all the time. Hands and feet stay icy. This is the clearest sign that your training is suppressing thyroid function and you are running on adrenaline and cortisol.

Recovery takes 3-4 days between sessions. If you can’t train the same muscle groups within 72 hours without feeling wrecked, you’re creating too much inflammatory damage.

You look flat and depleted despite training hard. No muscle fullness. No pump that lasts. Your glycogen stores are chronically depleted because you’re in constant deficit mode.

Your libido is gone. Morning erections stopped. Sexual function declined. When your body is under chronic stress, it shuts down reproduction to prioritize survival.

Sleep is terrible. You’re tired but wired. Can’t fall asleep despite exhaustion. Cortisol dysregulation from overtraining keeps you stuck in sympathetic overdrive.

You’re gaining fat despite training hard. Chronic stress creates metabolic adaptation- your body down-regulates thyroid, increases cortisol, and holds onto fat as a protective mechanism.

Joints hurt constantly. Systemic inflammation from excessive volume creates pain that never fully resolves.

Mood is irritable and anxious. Serotonin overload from muscle protein catabolism and chronic stress keeps you tense, unable to relax, mentally rigid.

Obsessive body image. You are constantly looking in the mirror and thinking that you need to be better and aren’t good enough. Your mind plays trick on you with volleys of body dysmorphia.

You need more and more volume just to feel like you “did something.” This is the clearest sign of adaptation gone wrong- you’re desensitized to training stimulus and chasing fatigue instead of progress.

If you recognize 3+ of these symptoms, your training isn’t building you up. It’s tearing you down. Your metabolic rate is suppressed, and no amount of additional volume will fix it.

Why Most Training Destroys Your Metabolism

My friend eating that cheeseburger understood something most people miss: you can exercise yourself into metabolic dysfunction.

Not all exercise is created equal. Some types enhance metabolic rate. Others suppress it. Most people are doing the latter without realizing it.

Here’s what actually determines metabolic rate:

Thyroid Function drives your basal metabolic rate. T3 (active thyroid hormone) tells your mitochondria how fast to produce ATP- the energy currency that powers every cell in your body. When T3 is suppressed, your entire system downregulates, including muscle building hormones like testosterone and IGF-1. You produce less energy, burn fewer calories, and struggle to build or maintain muscle.

Body Temperature reflects metabolic rate directly. Optimal morning temperature should be 97.8-98.6°F. Consistently below 97.8°F signals thyroid suppression and low metabolic output. This is why chronically cold hands and feet aren’t just a circulation issue- they’re a metabolic red flag.

Stress Hormones suppress metabolic rate. Cortisol blocks T4-to-T3 conversion in the liver. It increases muscle protein breakdown for fuel. It signals your body to conserve energy and store fat. Chronic cortisol elevation from overtraining keeps you in a catabolic, low-metabolic state.

Inflammatory Load blocks thyroid function. Endotoxin from gut permeability, inflammatory cytokines from excessive tissue damage, and oxidative stress all suppress thyroid hormone activity. The more inflammation you create through training, the more your metabolism suffers.

Glycogen Status signals metabolic abundance or scarcity. Depleted glycogen tells your body you’re in survival mode- conserve energy, slow metabolism, preserve fat. Adequate glycogen signals abundance- build tissue, burn calories efficiently, stay anabolic.

Muscle Mass increases resting energy expenditure. But here’s the catch: you can only maintain muscle if your metabolic rate supports it. Build muscle while suppressing metabolism, and you’ll lose it the moment you stop training.

The Types of Training That Suppress Metabolism

Running, cycling, long-duration cardio- these create prolonged stress that:

• Elevates cortisol chronically (blocks thyroid conversion)

• Increases free fatty acids in blood (suppress metabolism)

• Creates systemic inflammation

• Depletes glycogen without adequate recovery time

• Generates serotonin overload from muscle breakdown

• Increases gut permeability and endotoxin load

You might burn calories during the run. But you’re suppressing the rate at which your body burns calories the other 23 hours of the day.

Excessive Anaerobic Work Triggers Inflammatory Cascade

“Anaerobic exercise (getting out of breath) causes the release of a large variety of inflammatory mediators, beginning with lactic acid and interleukin-6 from the exercised muscle itself, including factors from cells in the blood, and hormones including estrogen, prolactin, and sometimes TSH.” -Ray Peat

Circuit training, metabolic conditioning, CrossFit WODs that leave you gasping-these flood your system with inflammatory signals that:

• Raise estrogen (blocks testosterone, stores fat)

• Elevate prolactin (suppresses dopamine and libido)

• Increase TSH without increasing active T3 (thyroid dysfunction)

• Create oxidative stress that damages cells

Brief intense efforts are fine. Prolonged oxygen debt is metabolically destructive long term.

Over-Training Breaks Down Muscle for Fuel

The fatigue produced by ‘over-training’ is probably produced by a tryptophan and serotonin overload, resulting from catabolism of muscle proteins and stress-induced increases in serotonin.” -Ray Peat

When you train beyond your recovery capacity, your body cannibalizes muscle tissue for energy. This releases tryptophan, which converts to serotonin. Excess serotonin:

• Blocks thyroid hormone at receptors

• Increases cortisol

• Suppresses testosterone

• Creates chronic fatigue that prevents recovery

You’re literally eating your own muscle to fuel the training you’re doing to build muscle. It’s metabolically insane.

High Training Volume Accumulates Endotoxin

Prolonged or excessive exercise increases intestinal permeability. Bacterial endotoxin leaks into your bloodstream, triggering:

• Elevated estrogen

• Suppressed thyroid function

• Systemic inflammation

• Impaired recovery

• Fat storage despite caloric deficit

This is why people grinding two-hour sessions daily often look puffy and soft despite being lean- they’re swimming in estrogen and endotoxin.

Fasted Training Spikes Cortisol

Training without glycogen forces gluconeogenesis- your body breaking down protein (including muscle) to create glucose. Cortisol spikes to mobilize this process. You’re sending a starvation signal while trying to build tissue. The hormonal environment opposes your goal.
(You will never find a bodybuilder training fasted.)

Low Carb + High Volume = Thyroid Suppression

Chronic carbohydrate restriction while training depletes liver glycogen. When liver glycogen is low, T4-to-T3 conversion becomes inefficient. Your body downregulates metabolic rate as a survival mechanism. You might stay lean temporarily, but you’re destroying your metabolism in the process.

Inadequate Recovery Stacks Stress

When you train again before recovering, you’re adding stress on top of unresolved stress. Cortisol stays elevated. Inflammation never clears. Thyroid function suppresses further. Testosterone drops. You’re working harder while your body slides deeper into survival mode.

This was me for eight years. Training six days a week, fasted, low carb, endless volume. I thought I was optimizing. I was destroying my metabolic rate.

But One Type of Training Enhances Metabolism

Concentric training- the lifting phase of a resistance movement- creates a growth stimulus without the excessive inflammatory load of prolonged aerobic stress or extreme eccentric damage.

Brief, intense efforts- like sprints- also don’t create prolonged oxygen debt or endotoxin accumulation support rather than suppress metabolism.

And: “In the resting state, muscles consume mainly fats, so maintaining relatively large muscles is important for preventing the accumulation of fats.”

Build muscle through strategic resistance training. That muscle burns fat while you rest. You don’t need cardio. You need muscle and a high metabolic rate.

Resistance training creates an anabolic hormonal environment that naturally reduces fat storage- if you do it without destroying your metabolic rate in the process.

The difference between training that enhances metabolism and training that suppresses it comes down to one principle:

Stimulus vs. Stress

Stimulus triggers adaptation. Stress blocks it.

Every training session creates both. The question is: which dominates?

Stimulus is the signal that tells your body “we need to be stronger/bigger/more capable to handle this load.” It’s brief, intense, specific. It creates demand for adaptation.

Stress is the systemic cost of that signal- inflammation, cortisol elevation, energy depletion, tissue damage. Manageable stress gets resolved through recovery. Excessive stress accumulates and suppresses metabolism.

The anabolic equation:

Most people train like this:

They create tons of stimulus but drown it in unrecoverable stress. Their body never gets to adapt because it’s too busy trying to survive.

Bioenergetic training:

You create just enough demand to trigger adaptation, then you get out. You eat to support recovery. You rest enough for your body to actually build tissue and raise metabolic rate.

My friend eating the burger understood this instinctively. He never over-stressed his system, so his metabolism stayed naturally high. He could maintain leanness and muscle without constant external stimulus.

I had to learn it the hard way: by destroying my metabolism and rebuilding it from scratch.

So with all that, here’s how to train for metabolic rate instead of metabolic suppression.

Want to learn how to eat to support your metabolism? download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

The 7 Bioenergetic Training Principles

1. Train Fed, Not Fasted

Fasted training creates a cortisol spike and catabolic environment that opposes muscle growth and suppresses metabolic rate.

When you train without adequate muscle glycogen, your body shifts into gluconeogenesis- breaking down muscle protein to create glucose for fuel. Cortisol elevates to mobilize this catabolic process. Thyroid function suppresses to conserve energy. Your body interprets the signal as starvation: burn muscle, preserve fat, shut down growth. Meanwhile, performance suffers because you lack the glucose needed for high-intensity contractions and the glycogen stores needed for post-workout anabolic processes.

Solution: Eat 50-100g carbs 1-2 hours before training. Orange juice with salt 30 minutes before works perfectly- fast-digesting glucose and fructose, electrolytes for performance, minimal digestive burden. This keeps cortisol low, provides fuel for quality contractions, and maintains an anabolic hormonal environment. When you train fed, you get lower stress response, better performance, preserved muscle protein, and maintained thyroid function.

2. High Carb for Metabolic Rate

Low-carb dieting while training hard depletes liver and muscle glycogen, suppresses thyroid function, elevates cortisol, and signals your body to enter survival mode instead of building tissue.

Carbohydrates drive metabolic rate through multiple pathways. They replenish muscle and liver glycogen (the primary anabolic signal that resources are abundant). They support T4-to-T3 conversion in the liver, which requires adequate glucose. They drive insulin- your most anabolic hormone. They suppress cortisol secretion. They provide energy substrate for quality training. When chronically restricted, your body downregulates thyroid output, increases stress hormones, and prioritizes fat preservation over muscle growth. Low carb might keep you lean temporarily, but it destroys the metabolic rate you need to stay lean effortlessly.

Solution: Eat 200-500g carbs on training days, minimum 150g on rest days (this depends on your caloric needs of course); Time most of your carbs to pre/post workout.

Sources: Basmati rice, potatoes, sweet fruits, gluten-free grains (sorghum, buckwheat etc.), root vegetables, yams, dairy.

This keeps liver glycogen full (supports thyroid conversion), muscle glycogen loaded (anabolic signal), cortisol suppressed (protects muscle), and energy high (quality training). Your body temperature will rise- the direct sign of elevated metabolic rate. Recovery improves. Muscle builds in an abundant hormonal environment rather than a stressed, depleted one.

The carbs won’t make you fat. They raise metabolic rate, which allowed your body to build muscle and burn fat simultaneously.

3. Stimulate, Don’t Annihilate

Training to complete muscular destruction creates excessive tissue damage, inflammatory byproducts, and systemic stress that requires extended recovery and suppresses metabolic rate.

The concentric phase (lifting the weight) generates force, recruits motor units, and creates the adaptation signal- this is anabolic. The eccentric phase (lowering), when taken to excess through negatives, ultra-slow tempo, or forced reps past failure, creates unnecessary muscle damage that triggers inflammatory cascades. Your body must clear inflammatory byproducts before it can begin rebuilding. Excessive damage from a single session suppresses thyroid function, elevates cortisol for days, and prevents anabolic processes. The goal is to create enough stimulus to trigger adaptation, then stop before you accumulate damage that exceeds recovery capacity.

Solution: Push the concentric phase to failure or near-failure to generate maximum stimulus. Control the eccentric but don’t grind it. Stop when form breaks down. Leave the gym feeling stimulated and energized, not destroyed and depleted. If you need to sit in your car for 20 minutes before driving home, you over-stressed your system. Adequate stimulus with manageable damage equals consistent recovery and growth.

Avoid: excessive negatives, forced reps beyond technical failure, drop sets to complete annihilation, chasing “the pump” through 25+ sets per body part, training until you can’t move.

The test: You should leave the gym feeling powerful, ready to eat and recover. Not destroyed.

4. Avoid Overtaxing the CNS

Heavy max-effort sets on every exercise, constant training to failure, and excessive neural fatigue create central nervous system burnout that manifests as poor sleep, hormonal dysfunction, and extended recovery times even when muscles feel fine.

Your central nervous system governs force production, coordination, and hormonal signaling. When you tax it excessively through constant max efforts, you create a stress response that elevates cortisol, suppresses testosterone, and disrupts sleep architecture. CNS fatigue recovers slower than muscular fatigue- you can feel “fine” muscularly but your nervous system remains depleted, preventing your body from generating the hormonal environment needed for growth. Anxiety increases, motivation drops, coordination suffers, and you can’t perform even though your muscles aren’t sore.

Solution: Use Reverse Pyramid Training (RPT). Push your top set to positive muscle failure or one rep shy when you’re fresh- maximum stimulus, minimal cumulative fatigue. Drop weight 10% for subsequent sets and stop 1-2 reps before failure- this maintains quality volume without grinding your CNS into dust.

Example Squat Session:

• Set 1: 315lbs × 8 reps (failure or 1 rep shy)

• Set 2: 285lbs × 7 reps (could do 9, stop at 7)

• Set 3: 255lbs × 7 reps (could do 10, stop at 7)

Total: 22 quality reps with progressive loading. Stimulus achieved. Nervous system preserved. Hormonal environment maintained.

This is how you train hard without training yourself into adrenal burnout and metabolic suppression.

5. Strategic Volume and Rep Ranges

Excessive volume per session accumulates systemic stress, inflammatory markers, and fatigue that exceeds recovery capacity- especially for natural lifters without enhanced hormonal environments.

Volume creates both stimulus and stress. Each set generates localized muscular tension (stimulus for growth) but also systemic inflammation, hormonal signaling, and energy depletion. There’s an optimal dose where stimulus is maximized and stress is manageable. Beyond this dose, additional sets create more inflammation and fatigue than adaptation benefit. Natural lifters have limited recovery capacity- no exogenous testosterone to speed protein synthesis or dampen inflammation. More volume only works if you can fully recover from it. Otherwise you’re accumulating damage session after session, suppressing thyroid, elevating cortisol chronically, and preventing the anabolic environment needed for growth.

Solution:

For metabolic rate and athletic function: 3 sets × 6-10 reps (RPT style). This builds strength, size, and power with minimal systemic fatigue. You look strong because you are strong. Dense, functional muscle tissue.

For maximum muscle growth: 4 sets × 10-12 reps. This emphasizes time under tension and metabolic stress (the localized kind that builds muscle, not the systemic kind that suppresses metabolism).

Both ranges enhance metabolic rate when paired with adequate recovery. More isn’t better- adequate stimulus with full recovery is better. Three hard sets you fully adapt to beat six mediocre sets that leave you depleted for five days.

I alternate 8-week phases: strength focus (3×6-8, heavier loads) and hypertrophy focus (4×10-12, moderate loads). This prevents adaptation and keeps progress consistent without burning out.

6. Train 3-4x Per Week (Not 6)

Training 5-7 days per week accumulates systemic stress faster than you can recover, chronically elevates cortisol, suppresses thyroid function, and prevents your body from spending time in the anabolic, tissue-building state.

Every training session creates an acute stress response- cortisol rises, inflammation increases, immune function temporarily suppresses, energy stores deplete. In the 24-72 hours after training, your body clears inflammatory markers, repairs tissue damage, replenishes glycogen, and synthesizes new proteins. This is when growth happens. If you train again before this process completes, you stack stress on top of stress. Cortisol never normalizes. Inflammation never resolves. Thyroid function progressively suppresses as your body interprets chronic stress as threat. You’re working harder while your metabolic rate drops and anabolic capacity diminishes. Natural lifters need more recovery time between sessions because they lack hormonal support to speed these processes.

Solution:

Full Body 3x Per Week: Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Every major muscle group trained 3x weekly with 48-72 hours recovery between sessions.

Example:

• Monday: Back Squat 3×6-8, Overhead Press 3×6-8, Barbell Row 3×8-10; 1-2 Isolation Movements

• Wednesday: Deadlift 3×5-6, Bench Press 3×6-8, Weighted Pull-up 3×6-8; 1-2 Isolation Movements

• Friday: Front Squat 3×8-10, Incline Press 3×8-10, Chest-Supported Row 3×10-12; 1-2 Isolation Movements

Upper/Lower 4x Per Week: Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday. Each muscle hit 2x weekly with one full rest day mid-week.

Example:

• Monday: Upper (Bench, Row, Overhead Press, Curls)

• Tuesday: Lower (Squat, Romanian Deadlift, Leg Curl, Calves)

• Thursday: Upper (Incline Press, Pull-up, Dip, Rear Delts)

• Friday: Lower (Deadlift, Front Squat, Lunges, Abs)

Higher frequency per muscle (3x vs 1x in body part splits) with lower volume per session = more growth signals weekly with less systemic stress accumulation. More rest days = more time in recovery and anabolic state. Less cumulative inflammation = maintained metabolic rate.

I went from six days a week to three full-body sessions. My total weekly volume per muscle stayed similar, but recovery improved dramatically. Strength increased consistently. Energy was higher. Body temperature stayed elevated. I had time for life, sleep, and stress management.

More training isn’t better. Better recovery is better.

7. Breathe Through Your Nose

Chronic mouth breathing during training causes CO₂ loss through hyperventilation, which triggers sympathetic stress response, reduces oxygen delivery to tissues, and suppresses metabolic efficiency.

When you mouth breathe excessively, you blow off CO₂. Lower CO₂ levels reduce oxygen delivery to working muscles through the Bohr effect- hemoglobin holds onto oxygen more tightly when CO₂ is low, meaning less oxygen reaches your tissues despite breathing more. Blood vessels constrict. Lactic acid accumulates faster. The sympathetic nervous system activates (stress response). Your body interprets hyperventilation as danger, elevating cortisol and suppressing parasympathetic recovery. Between sets, this prevents adequate restoration. During sets, it impairs performance despite the sensation of “getting more air.”

Solution: Breathe through your nose during warm-ups, rest periods between sets, and lighter working sets. This maintains optimal CO₂ levels, which paradoxically improves oxygen delivery to tissues, keeps blood vessels dilated, reduces lactic acid buildup, and maintains parasympathetic tone. On your absolute top set at peak exertion, mouth breathing is fine- but return to nasal breathing immediately after racking the weight.

This keeps your nervous system calm even during hard training, reduces stress hormone response to the session, and improves recovery between sets. Your work capacity increases and metabolic suppression from training decreases.

This one change improved my session-to-session recovery more than I expected. It’s small but it matters.

The Metabolic Markers: How To Know It’s Working

These aren’t just nice improvements. They’re objective measurements of metabolic rate enhancement.

Body temperature rises. This is the primary marker. You should feel warm all day, flush red fingertips, and not have an ice cold nose.

Resting pulse normalizes. Not suppressed (hypothyroid), not elevated (overtraining). Mine sits at 60-75 bpm now, up from 32 bpm when I was overtraining. Target: 60-85 bpm.

Recovery speed improves. You can train the same muscle groups every 48-72 hours without soreness or performance decline. I went from needing 4-5 days between sessions to being fully recovered in 36-48 hours.

Energy increases throughout the day. Not just feeling good- actual capacity to do things. Mental clarity improves. Afternoon crashes disappear. You don’t need stimulants to function. You should be able to go without caffeine.

Sleep quality improves. You fall asleep faster, sleep deeper, wake refreshed. This signals cortisol and stress hormones have normalized.

Libido returns or strengthens. Morning erections come back. Sexual thoughts return spontaneously. Your body isn’t prioritizing survival over reproduction anymore.

Mood stabilizes. Less anxiety, less irritability, more resilience to stress. You’re not riding the cortisol/serotonin rollercoaster from overtraining.

You feel energized after training. Key behavioral marker. If you leave the gym feeling powerful and ready to eat, you trained correctly. If you leave destroyed and need to nap, you created too much stress.

Muscle fullness improves. Glycogen-loaded look. Muscles feel dense and full even on rest days, not flat and depleted.

Strength increases session to session. Progressive overload becomes consistent instead of sporadic. You’re adding weight or reps regularly because you’re actually recovering.

Body composition improves without aggressive cutting. Fat comes off while muscle builds because your metabolic rate is elevated. You’re not fighting your own metabolism.

The ultimate test: Take 2-3 weeks completely off training. If your body weight and composition stay stable (or improve), your metabolism is rebuilt. If you gain 5-10+ pounds immediately, your metabolism is still suppressed and dependent on external stimulus.

I can now take a month off training and come back the same weight, same leanness, same strength. That never would have happened during my overtraining years. That’s the difference between a suppressed metabolism and an optimized one.

Track body temperature daily. It’s the most reliable metabolic biomarker you have.

The High Energy Approach

This protocol works. But if your metabolism is already suppressed- you need more than a training program alone.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

Not medical advice. Educational purposes only. Do your own research, work with someone qualified, and don’t outsource your health decisions to anyone- including me. This is a starting point, not a prescription.

But it was not always like that.

For years, I went through the motions. I could perform. I could finish. But the pleasure was... muted. Like watching a movie with the wrong prescription of glasses. I felt the physical sensation, but it never reached the intensity of bliss I knew could happen.

I assumed this was normal male sexuality. Get aroused, finish quickly, feel nothing, move on- which is what most guys experience (and what the ladies can’t stand.)

So I tried everything I could find to make it better. I experimented with edging techniques, thinking I just needed better control. I bought supplements marketed for “male performance”-horny goat weed, maca, tongkat ali. Cialis didn’t help other than be stiff all day. I even tried semen retention for a long period of time that i’m too embarrassed to admit.

The physical mechanics improved slightly- I could last longer, I had better control. But the actual experience? Still hollow. Still just going through motions. Sex felt like a physical chore I was trying to optimize rather than something I actually wanted.

...then I fixed my metabolism.

I wasn’t even targeting restoring sexual function. I was simply trying to understand why I was tired and feeling cold all the time. My free T3 was 2.0 pg/mL and my resting heart rate was 32bpm. I had no clue this correlated with orgasm... but boy was I wrong…

Within a few weeks focused on metabolic optimization, my free T3 climbed from 2.0 to 4.4 pg/mL. My body temperature normalized. My fingertips started flushing red again. My resting pulse went from 32 to 65 bpm…

…and my capacity for pleasure exploded.

Sex became a completely different experience. I actually wanted it. But not as a dopamine craving- more as a innate search for meditative bliss.

I suddenly understood what people meant when they said sex creates intimacy. For the first time in my life, I felt a genuine energetic exchange happening during sex- not as woo-woo metaphor, but as visceral experience. I understood what it meant to transcend the male “mechanical” sex- to a mystical experience in the generous present moment.

-Ray Peat, Nutrition for Women

Sex is one of the most metabolically expensive processes your body performs. It requires massive ATP production, rapid neurotransmitter synthesis, coordinated muscular contractions, and the ability to rapidly shift between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system states.

If your metabolism is suppressed- if your mitochondria can’t generate adequate energy- your nervous system simply cannot execute the process. You might achieve mechanical climax, but you won’t experience the transcendent pleasure that’s actually possible.

In 1927, Wilhelm Reich documented this exact phenomenon. ”the overwhelming majority of people suffer from orgastic impotence”- the ability to achieve mechanical orgasm without genuine pleasure or satisfaction.

His patients described a ”feeling of emptiness in the genitals” despite physical climax.

Reich called it a ”damming-up of biological energy.” He didn’t have the endocrinology to explain it, but his clinical observations were precise: low energy = weak orgasms, regardless of technique or psychology.

Eighty years later, we can explain what Reich observed. His “biological energy” was mitochondrial ATP production driven by thyroid hormone and nervous system regulation. His “orgastic impotence” was metabolic suppression.

This isn’t about optimizing performance. It’s about restoring the biological capacity for pleasure that should have been there all along.

Now, here’s everything that i’ve learned about to have better orgasms.

How To Know If Your Orgasms Are Metabolically Suppressed

Your orgasms are short. 3-6 seconds of contraction, then it’s over. You hear about people having 15-30 second orgasms and assume they’re exaggerating… but they’re not.

The pleasure is localized. You feel it in your genitals but not your whole body. No movement of energy through your torso, legs, or spine. No full-body muscle engagement.

Your refractory period is long (men). 20-45 minutes before you can even think about going again. Sometimes hours. The idea of multiple orgasms in one session seems biologically impossible (it’s not.)

You don’t last long (men). When energy is high enough, you can choose to finish- or not finish- when you want.

You can’t reach orgasm at all (women). Or you can only climax under very specific conditions- specific positions, specific stimulation, specific mental state. Flexibility is gone.

The intensity is muted. You’re chasing a dopamine hit, not experiencing transcendent pleasure. It feels good but not incredible. More relief than ecstasy. What Wilhelm Reich described in 1942 as a “feeling of emptiness in the genitals”-you achieve climax but feel hollow afterward.

You need more stimulation over time. What worked at 20 needs more intensity, more novelty, more extreme content at 30. The threshold keeps rising.

You crash afterward. Instead of feeling energized and connected, you feel depleted. Tired. Irritable. You want to sleep immediately or be alone.

Your body feels numb or disconnected during sex. You’re in your head instead of your body. Thinking instead of feeling. Planning instead of experiencing.

You have zero interest in round two. The thought of sex again within an hour feels exhausting, not exciting.

Your libido is inconsistent. High some days, completely gone others. You rarely think about sex spontaneously- it’s responsive, not generative.

If you’re recognizing yourself in this list, your nervous system doesn’t have the metabolic capacity to generate high-quality orgasms. The neurotransmitter synthesis, the mitochondrial ATP production, the hormonal signaling- none of it is working optimally.

Your orgasm quality is a direct readout of your metabolic state.

And most people have no idea how good it can actually be.

The Overwhelming Majority Suffer (And Have For Decades)

Wilhelm Reich made a controversial observation in his clinical practice:

“Psychic health depends upon orgastic potency, i.e., upon the degree to which one can surrender to and experience the climax of excitation in the natural sexual act... In the case of orgastic impotence, from which the overwhelming majority of people suffer, damming-up of biological energy occurs and becomes the source of irrational actions.”

Read that again: “the overwhelming majority of people suffer from orgastic impotence.”

Reich wasn’t talking about erectile dysfunction. He was describing what most of you are experiencing right now- the ability to achieve mechanical orgasm without genuine pleasure, satisfaction, or full-body release.

His patients could ejaculate. They could reach clitoral orgasm. But they described a “feeling of emptiness in the genitals” despite physical climax. No transcendent pleasure. No surrender. Just a mechanical discharge that left them feeling more frustrated than fulfilled.

Reich called this a “damming-up of biological energy.” He didn’t have modern endocrinology to explain what he was seeing, but his clinical observations were precise: patients with low “biological energy” could not fully experience orgasm regardless of technique, psychology, or relationship quality.

Wilhelm Reich’s 1942 diagram contrasting metabolically suppressed individuals (left) with optimal function (right). Note the difference in “biological energy” oscillation- exactly what we now measure as metabolic rate and ATP production.

Eighty years later, we can explain what Reich observed.

His “biological energy” was mitochondrial ATP production. His “orgastic impotence” was metabolic suppression- low T3, depleted liver glycogen, sympathetic nervous system dominance, inadequate neurotransmitter synthesis.

Cellular Energy, Not Technique

Every article about better orgasms talks about edging, kegel exercises, tantric breathing, supplements, medication, peptides or specific positions.

They’re targeting the wrong thing.

Orgasm is one of the most metabolically expensive processes your body performs. Here’s what needs to happen in those 10-30 seconds:

Neurotransmitter Cascade: Your brain floods with dopamine (up to 200% baseline), oxytocin, endorphins, and prolactin. Synthesizing these neurotransmitters requires adequate precursor amino acids, B vitamins, and ATP. “Having an orgasm without enough vitamin E would be like sneezing without first inhaling,” as Ray Peat observed-vitamin E protects the cell membranes and hormonal pathways that make this cascade possible.

Muscular Contraction Sequence: Your pelvic floor, PC muscle, and sometimes full-body musculature contract rhythmically at 0.8-second intervals. Each contraction burns ATP. Sustained contractions require glycogen and phosphocreatine stores. Without adequate thyroid function driving cellular energy production, these contractions are weak and brief.

Sympathetic-Parasympathetic Switch: You spike from sympathetic (arousal) to parasympathetic (orgasm) within seconds. This rapid switching demands massive mitochondrial output and nervous system flexibility. Reich’s “capacity for surrender” is literally your ability to shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic activation.

Hormonal Signaling: Testosterone, DHT, progesterone, and pregnenolone all modulate orgasm intensity. Low androgens in men = weak contractions. Estrogen dominance in women = difficulty reaching climax.

-Ray Peat, Nutrition for Women

Nervous System Recruitment: Full-body orgasms require the entire nervous system to fire coherently. This needs optimal myelination, neurotransmitter availability, and cellular energy charge. What Reich called the difference between “neurotic character” and “genital character” is the difference between a rigid, energy-depleted nervous system and one that can fully oscillate between tension and release.

If ANY of these systems are running on fumes- if your mitochondria are suppressed, if your liver can’t synthesize neurotransmitters, if your thyroid function is low- your orgasms will be weak regardless of technique.

This is why 20-year-olds with terrible metabolic habits can still have great orgasms (youth = metabolic resilience) but 35-year-olds who’ve spent a decade in caloric deficits and chronic cardio have 4-second finishes or can’t finish at all.

The limiting factor isn’t your PC muscle strength or your “mind-body connection.” It’s whether your cells can generate enough ATP to fuel the cascade.

Most people are trying to optimize orgasm technique while running on a suppressed metabolism. It’s like trying to redline a car with a clogged fuel filter.

Fix the metabolism first. The orgasms follow automatically.

The Improved Orgasm Protocol

1. Thyroid Optimization

Without adequate thyroid function, you can’t produce strong orgasm contractions. Period.

T3 directly regulates mitochondrial ATP production- the energy currency your nervous system needs for intense neurotransmitter release and sustained muscular contractions. Low T3 means your cells are running on fumes during the most energetically demanding moment of your day.

- Ray Peat, Nutrition for Women

This isn’t poetic language. It’s describing the actual physiological capacity for full nervous system engagement- what Reich called “the capacity to surrender to and experience the climax of excitation.”

Target: Morning body temp 97.8°F+. Resting pulse 60-85 bpm.

How: Raw carrots, coconut oil, bone broth, liver, eggs, sweet fruits, milk, oysters, potatoes, orange juice, mushrooms. These foods support T4-to-T3 conversion through adequate liver glycogen, mineral cofactors, and reduced inflammatory load.

See my 11 Foods That Increase T3 post for full breakdown.

2. Progesterone

Orgasm requires a shift from sympathetic (stress) to parasympathetic (relaxation) nervous system activation. You can’t climax while cortisol is spiking and adrenaline is flooding your system.

Reich’s diagram showed this perfectly- ”neurotic character” is stuck in sympathetic overdrive with “sexual energy inhibited, repressed.” The “genital character” freely oscillates between work and sexuality because the nervous system can actually relax.

Progesterone is the master parasympathetic hormone. It calms the nervous system, reduces cortisol, increases GABA signaling, and allows the deep relaxation required for powerful orgasms.

This is why one or two drinks can sometimes improve sexual performance- alcohol acts on GABA receptors similarly to progesterone, reducing sympathetic overdrive. But alcohol comes with metabolic costs. Progesterone gives you the relaxation without the hangover.

Ladies, you need to feel deeply relaxed with your partner. He should allow you to bloom and fully let go into the moment. Men, you can only create this container if your nervous system isn’t running on adrenaline- adequate progesterone lets you stay grounded and present instead of rushing toward the finish.

How: Progest-E (topical progesterone in vitamin E)

Women benefit even more dramatically- progesterone counteracts estrogen dominance and allows full nervous system engagement during sex.

3. DHT Optimization

DHT mediates neurological sensitivity in sexual tissue and drives the assertiveness and presence required for deep sexual connection.

DHT binds to androgen receptors in the brain and genitals with 5x the affinity of testosterone. It increases nerve density, sensation, and psychological arousal. Without it, men operate at 20% capacity- weak sensation, passive mental state, inability to lead.

For men: Low DHT = difficulty maintaining presence, premature ejaculation from overstimulation, weak contractions.

For women: Your partner’s DHT level determines whether he can hold space for you to surrender fully. Low DHT men rush, chase validation, can’t handle intensity. Reich’s “genital character” requires the hormonal capacity for confidence and presence.

How: Creatine monohydrate (5-20g daily), adequate saturated fat (eggs, steak), gelatin (glycine supports 5-alpha reductase), sorghum, Dioscorea Nipponica, DHEA, low cortisol. Thyroid optimization is the most potent thing for increasing 5-alpha reductase activity.

(Avoid 5ar inhibitors like finasteride or dutasteride if you want great sexual health- ask me how I know.)

4. The Semen Stack

For men: Ejaculate volume directly correlates with contraction intensity. More volume = more forceful contractions = longer, more intense orgasms.

The nutrients that support semen production also support neurotransmitter synthesis and nervous system function. You’re not just optimizing volume- you’re optimizing the entire orgasmic cascade.

Vitamin E: “Having an orgasm without enough vitamin E would be like sneezing without first inhaling.” - Ray Peat

Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols) protects cell membranes, supports testosterone production, and inhibits aromatase. Critical for both male and female sexual function.

Dose: 400IU mixed tocopherols daily with fat. Topical is good; I like idealabs TocoVit.

Tim Ferriss mentioned this in The “4 Hour Body” with his almond protocol- it works.

Zinc: Required for testosterone synthesis, sperm production, and prostate function in men. In women, supports progesterone production and ovarian health.

Dose: 25-50mg daily, ideally from oysters (6-12 oysters 2-3x weekly). If supplementing, take with copper (2mg) to prevent imbalance.

“Seafood, especially oysters, shrimp, squid, etc., would provide the iodine and selenium you need for good thyroid regulation.” -Ray Peat

Selenium: Cofactor for glutathione peroxidase, protecting cells from oxidative damage. Also required for T4-to-T3 conversion.

Dose: 200mcg daily from Brazil nuts (2-3 nuts) or eggs.

(Selenium will give you larger loads men.)

Vitamin D: Supports testosterone production in men, progesterone production in women, and calcium metabolism (critical for muscular contraction).

Dose: 2000-4000IU daily. Test levels- target 50-70 ng/mL.

Lysine: Amino acid that increases seminal volume in men and supports collagen synthesis (tissue integrity) in both sexes.

Dose: 1000mg daily, ideally from gelatin-rich foods like bone broth or dairy sources.

5. Lower Estrogen

High estrogen relative to progesterone and testosterone blunts orgasm intensity in both men and women. Estrogen increases serotonin (which inhibits orgasm), reduces androgen receptor sensitivity, and creates nervous system hyperarousal that prevents deep relaxation.

Reich’s “neurotic character” diagram shows sexual energy as “inhibited, repressed”-this is often the effect of estrogen dominance creating a rigid, anxious nervous system state.

- Ray Peat, Nutrition for Women

How: Raw carrots or mushrooms daily (binds estrogen in gut + clears endotoxin), adequate protein and B vitamins (support liver conjugation), vitamin E (inhibits aromatase), calcium (suppresses parathyroid hormone which increases estrogen), avoiding PUFA (increases aromatase activity).

6. Better Circulation

Cold extremities, poor circulation, and low blood pressure all signal metabolic suppression- and they directly impair sexual function.

Adequate circulation delivers oxygen, glucose, and hormones to sexual tissue. It allows nerve sensitivity to increase. It enables the muscular contractions that produce orgasm.

Salt increases blood volume and supports nerve conduction velocity. Warmth indicates adequate metabolic rate. Together they create the conditions for intense sensation and full-body engagement.

How: 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt in water or orange juice 30-60 minutes before sex. Keep ambient temperature comfortable (68-72°F). Wear warm clothing if you tend to run cold. Eat adequate carbs (liver glycogen = warmth).

Your body temperature during sex should feel comfortably warm, not cold or clammy. If your hands and feet stay cold, your metabolism is suppressed and Reich’s “biological energy” can’t circulate properly.

7. High CO₂

High carbon dioxide increases oxygen delivery to tissues (Bohr effect), relaxes smooth muscle, and increases nerve sensitivity. Low CO₂ creates the opposite- tissue hypoxia, vasoconstriction, nervous system hyperexcitability.

Chronic hyperventilation (from stress, mouth breathing, or anxiety) drops CO₂ and makes orgasm difficult or impossible. You’re stuck in sympathetic overdrive- Reich’s “neurotic character” state.

How: Nasal breathing only, especially during sex. Slow down your breath. If you’re gasping or panting, you’re hyperventilating- this kills CO₂ and prevents parasympathetic activation.

Practice: Breathe through your nose, extend exhales, let pauses happen naturally. During sex, breathe slower than feels natural. This raises CO₂, increases tissue oxygenation, and allows your nervous system to fully contract and release.

8. Reduce Overstimulation

Constant novelty- especially from pornography- downregulates dopamine D2 receptors. Your brain becomes numb to pleasure. You need more extreme stimulation to feel anything, and even then the sensation is muted.

This isn’t a moral judgment. It’s a metabolic reality. Supernormal stimuli desensitize your reward circuitry, making real sex feel underwhelming. Reich’s patients who experienced “emptiness in the genitals” despite orgasm were often dealing with this exact problem.

How: Avoid pornography entirely. Focus on partnered sex or imagination in masturbation.

Timeline: 2-4 weeks for noticeable receptor upregulation. 8-12 weeks for full recovery if you’ve been a chronic porn user.

The goal isn’t deprivation. It’s restoring your nervous system’s ability to experience pleasure from normal stimuli- your actual partner, in real time, with real connection.

9. Set the Scene

Environmental context matters. Your nervous system scans for safety before allowing full surrender.

Cold room, bright lights, time pressure, unresolved conflict- all of these activate sympathetic stress response and prevent parasympathetic relaxation required for great orgasms.

Reich’s diagram shows this clearly: “neurotic character” is characterized by “protest, escape” responses. The nervous system perceives threat and cannot relax into pleasure.

How: Dim lights or darkness. Comfortable temperature. No interruptions. Clean space. Music if it helps you drop in. Enough time that you’re not rushing.

For women especially: safety cues are mandatory. You cannot have a powerful orgasm if your nervous system perceives threat- physical, emotional, or relational.

For men: create the container. Your presence, groundedness, and lack of urgency signal safety to your partner. This is the “genital character” capacity to hold space.

10. Slow Down & Get Present (Feel, Don’t Think)

Your prefrontal cortex- the thinking, planning, analyzing part of your brain- cannot be active during peak orgasm. It inhibits the limbic system and prevents full nervous system engagement.

Great sex requires dropping out of your head and into your body. Feeling instead of thinking. Sensing instead of strategizing. Tuning in to the energy of the moment instead of monitoring your performance.

This is Reich’s “capacity for surrender”- literally the ability to stop thinking and let your body take over. Metabolic suppression makes this impossible because your nervous system doesn’t have the flexibility to let go of cognitive control.

This is why a drink or two sometimes helps- alcohol (like progesterone and GABA) quiets the prefrontal cortex and allows you to feel more and think less.

But you don’t need alcohol. You need practice getting present.

How: Focus on sensation- temperature, texture, pressure, movement. Notice your breath. Feel the energy moving through your body. Stay curious about what you’re experiencing instead of worried about what you should be experiencing.

When you catch yourself thinking (”Am I doing this right?” “Do they like this?” “Is this taking too long?”), redirect to sensation. What do you feel? Where do you feel it? Let that pull you back into your body.

11. Improve Life Conditions

You cannot out-supplement chronic stress. If your nervous system is running on adrenaline 16 hours a day, no amount of vitamin E or progesterone will give you transcendent orgasms.

Stress- financial, relational, occupational, existential- keeps you locked in sympathetic overdrive. Your body prioritizes survival over reproduction. Cortisol suppresses sex hormones. Chronic activation prevents the parasympathetic relaxation required for orgasm.

Great orgasms are a sign that you are doing everything right. They’re a signal that your metabolism is functioning, your hormones are balanced, your nervous system feels safe, and your life conditions support thriving instead of just surviving.

If your orgasms suck, look at your life. Where are you tolerating chronic stress? What needs to change? Your sex life will improve when your metabolic state improves- and your metabolic state improves when your life conditions improve.

How: This isn’t a protocol. It’s a directive. Reduce work hours if you’re burned out. Address financial stress. Fix your relationship or leave it. Sleep 8 hours. Stop training like you’re preparing for war. Eat enough food. Create space for pleasure, rest, and connection.

Your orgasm quality will tell you when you’ve gotten it right.

The High Energy Approach

This protocol works.

But if your metabolism is significantly suppressed- you may need personalized guidance to restore function fast.

That’s where the High Energy Diet Model comes in- which is the exact blueprint I use with 1:1 clients to restore metabolic function. You’ll learn how much to eat, what to eat, and meal timing, step-by-step. FREE inside the community.

Get the Free Diet Model

Keep getting them gains,

-Nick

P.S. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients on a full 16-week transformation. If you want to get lean and double your energy with me directly, book a call here.

I had a drawer full of supplement bottles-nootropics for focus, adaptogens for stress, stimulants for energy… and sleep aids for the anxiety those stimulants created. I was spending $300+ monthly on compounds with names I could barely pronounce, convinced that if I just found the right stack, everything would click.

I bought a cold plunge membership thinking cold exposure would be the metabolic reset I needed. I went to sensory deprivation tanks to see if I could reset my nervous system. I tried every fancy bio hack- red light therapy, grounding mats, continuous glucose monitors, HRV tracking, brain waves. I read every biohacking book and listened to every podcast from Dave Asprey and Gary Brecka. I experimented with carnivore, keto, high-fat, time-restricted eating- every metabolic protocol except the one that actually worked…

The whole time, my free T3 was sitting at 2.0 pg/mL. My body temperature was 97°F and a resting pulse rate of 32bpm. My metabolic rate was suppressed. No amount of supplementation was going to fix a hormone deficiency caused by chronic under-eating of carbs, mineral deficiencies, and PUFA accumulation.

If someone had told me in year one that eating potatoes, orange juice, and liver would solve all of my brain fog and energy issues, I would have saved three years and probably $30,000 in supplements and biohacking equipment. But nobody talks about thyroid- instead everyone’s selling the next supplement or protocol instead of teaching sound fundamental metabolic principles.

When I fixed my nutrition- adding the 11 foods I'm about to show you- my free T3 climbed from 2.0 pg/mL to 4.4 pg/mL within 16 weeks. I finally felt warmth in my body again. My resting pulse normalized from 32 to 65 bpm. Brain fog lifted. Fat came off without extreme restriction.

The difference between low T3 and optimal T3 isn’t just how you look. It’s whether you function like a human being or drag through life in metabolic suppression.

That, is what I am going to show you now.

How To Know If Your T3 Is Low

Hypothyroidism isn’t just about being tired. It’s systemic metabolic suppression that affects every cell in your body.

You’ll feel cold when others are comfortable. Your hands and feet stay icy regardless of ambient temperature. You need layers and blankets while your partner is walking around in a t-shirt. Your basal body temperature sits below 97.8°F, sometimes dipping into the 96s.

Your energy never recovers. You wake up tired despite 8 hours of sleep. Afternoon crashes hit like a freight train. You need stimulants just to feel baseline. Training leaves you wrecked for days instead of stronger. Simple tasks feel monumental.

Your brain works slower. You can’t access words as quickly. Concentration requires massive effort. You make simple mistakes you wouldn’t normally make. Creativity flatlines. You feel mentally rigid, unable to think flexibly or consider new perspectives.

Your body composition resists change. You eat in a caloric deficit and the scale barely moves. Muscle won’t grow despite progressive overload. Fat accumulates despite your efforts. You look soft even when you’re technically lean.

Your hair thins. The outer third of your eyebrows disappears. Your skin gets dry and pale. You look older than you should.

Your digestion slows to a crawl. Constipation becomes normal. Food sits in your stomach for hours. You feel bloated constantly.

Your stress response goes haywire. Your heart races over nothing. You shake, sweat, and feel internal tension from minor stressors. Your resting heart rate drops below 55 bpm but spikes to 120+ from walking up stairs.

Your libido disappears. Morning erections stop. Sexual thoughts become rare. Performance declines when you do engage.

If you recognize yourself in this list, your T3 is probably suboptimal regardless of what your labs say. If your TSH is above 2.5, your free T3 is below 3.5 pg/mL, or your reverse T3 is elevated, you have objective confirmation of what you already feel.

Conversion, Not Production

If you look up anything about T3 online- you’ll see blogs and .edu sites talking about supporting thyroid hormone production with iodine, selenium, maybe some ashwagandha or thyroid glandular extract.

They’re targeting the wrong thing.

Your thyroid produces mostly T4- thyroxine, the inactive storage form. T4 does almost nothing until it’s converted into T3- triiodothyronine, the active hormone that actually binds to nuclear receptors and increases your metabolic rate.

About 60% of this conversion happens in your liver through deiodinase enzymes that cleave off iodine molecules. Another 20% occurs in your kidneys. The rest happens in various tissues including skeletal muscle and gut.

If your liver isn’t functioning optimally, if those deiodinase enzymes lack cofactors, or if inflammatory stress is blocking the conversion pathway, your T4 levels can look perfect on labs while your T3 stays in the gutter.

And even if T3 is fine on labs, you may not get enough T3 into your cells.

This is why so many people “have normal thyroid labs” but feel hypothyroid. Their production is fine- but this process is broken.

The deiodinase enzymes that perform this conversion require three things:

1. Adequate liver glycogen as energy substrate

2. Specific minerals as enzyme cofactors (zinc, copper, selenium)

3. Low inflammatory load (endotoxin, excess estrogen, cortisol dysregulation all block conversion)

Most thyroid protocols ignore all three of these requirements.

These 11 foods fix that problem.

Watch the full breakdown here if you don’t want to read:

And if you want this mapped out meal by meal, download the FREE High Energy Diet Model. It’s a full blueprint walking you step by step how to eat in Skool. Enjoy.

The 11 Foods

1. Raw Carrots

Endotoxin from gut bacteria suppresses deiodinase enzymes. Estrogen metabolites recirculate through enterohepatic circulation, blocking thyroid hormone at receptors.

Insoluble fiber in raw carrots binds endotoxin and estrogen before bacterial enzymes can deconjugate them. The carrot scrubs your intestinal lining and carries bound toxins out in stool. Antibacterial compounds in the peel reduce populations of endotoxin-producing bacteria.

Solution: One medium raw carrot daily, shredded with coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil, salt, and vinegar. Eat between meals for maximum binding.

(Or just eat a raw carrot haha)

“Daily raw carrot, weekly seafood and liver, enough sunlight and vitamin D, a good ratio of calcium to phosphate, are often helpful.” - Ray Peat

2. Coconut Oil

Polyunsaturated fats accumulate in tissues and directly block thyroid receptors. PUFA suppresses deiodinase activity and lowers metabolic rate.

Medium-chain triglycerides bypass the lymphatic system and go straight to the liver for energy. They don’t oxidize easily, don’t accumulate in problematic ways, and don’t interfere with thyroid hormone activity. Saturated fats remove the metabolic brake PUFA creates by offsetting the PUFA fat burning ratio.

Solution: 1-2 tablespoons daily in coffee, cooking, or blended into shakes. Replace all seed oils with coconut oil or butter.

3. Bone Broth

Muscle meat provides excess methionine with minimal glycine. This amino acid imbalance increases homocysteine, depletes glycine stores, and generates oxidative stress that damages the liver.

Long-cooked bone broth extracts concentrated gelatin (mostly glycine) from connective tissue. Glycine promotes glutathione synthesis for liver detoxification, supports bile production, and balances methionine load. Extracted minerals support cellular energy production.

Solution: 8-16oz daily as soup base or consumed straight with salt. Cook chicken feet or knucklebones 24-48 hours for maximum gelatin extraction.

“The degenerative and inflammatory diseases can often be corrected by the use of gelatin-rich foods.” - Ray Peat

4. Beef Liver

Vitamin A deficiency makes cells resistant to thyroid hormone even when T3 levels are optimal. Copper deficiency allows unbound iron to accumulate, creating oxidative damage that blocks conversion.

Liver provides preformed retinol that regulates thyroid hormone receptor expression and gene transcription. Copper supports ceruloplasmin production, preventing iron-mediated liver damage. B vitamins support mitochondrial function and T3 utilization at the cellular level.

Solution: 100-200g twice weekly, as paté or pan-fried.

(If you hate the taste, chop up frozen liver into pill size cuts then swallow like a supplement.)

“When people supplement thyroid and eat liver once or twice a week, their acne and dandruff (and many other problems) usually clear up very quickly.” - Ray Peat

5. Whole Eggs

Selenium deficiency makes T4-to-T3 conversion impossible- all three deiodinase enzymes are selenoproteins. Without adequate cholesterol, you can’t produce steroid hormones that increase alongside improved thyroid function.

Eggs provide selenium as a structural component for enzyme synthesis. Cholesterol serves as precursor for testosterone, DHT, and pregnenolone. Glycine supports liver conjugation pathways that clear hormone metabolites and inflammatory compounds.

Solution: 2-5 whole eggs daily. The yolk contains the nutrients that matter- egg whites alone miss everything.

6. Sweet Fruits

Depleted liver glycogen shifts the body toward producing reverse T3 instead of active T3. The liver prioritizes survival over optimization when energy substrate runs low.

Fructose is metabolized primarily by the liver and preferentially refills hepatic glycogen stores. Unlike glucose, fructose doesn’t spike insulin significantly yet provides energy substrate for hepatic enzyme function. Potassium in fruit displaces intracellular sodium, improving cellular energy charge.

Solution: 3-5 servings daily- oranges, melons, berries, tropical fruits. Ripe fruit is ideal.

“Orange juice, guavas, watermelons, cherimoyas, cooked apples, cherries, and ripe papayas are good sources of sugar to have regularly.” - Ray Peat

7. Milk